Identical photos and similar photos are different jobs.

Two images can look the same on screen while containing different bytes. This finder identifies exact file copies, not visual similarity.

An exact photo copy

If you copy vacation.jpg into another folder without changing it, both files normally have the same byte size and content hash. Renaming the copy does not change its bytes. Eligible same-size images with matching SHA-256 appear in Exact copies, just like documents and archives.

The image preview helps you recognize the photograph. The verification comes from the bytes, not from how the preview looks.

A resized or recompressed copy

Sending a picture through a messaging app or exporting it at another quality level may change its dimensions, compression, or metadata. The result can depict the same scene with a different size and hash. A PNG export and a JPEG export are also different files even if they look nearly identical.

This app does not label those images as verified duplicates. It does not normalize pixels, calculate perceptual hashes, or compare similarity scores.

An edit or another frame

A crop, exposure adjustment, filter, or metadata update can change an image file's hash. Burst photos may look very similar yet capture different expressions or moments. Those are meaningful distinctions that exact-byte detection is designed to preserve.

If your goal is choosing the best shot from a burst or finding lower-quality versions of the same picture, you need a photo-management tool with visual comparison. That workflow involves judgment about image content rather than simple file identity.

Review the locations

An exact image copy may be deliberately present in a photo library, a project folder, and a backup. The app knows the selected relative paths but does not know which copies are required by other software. Before removing a copy elsewhere, consider whether the location is part of a library, album export, or recovery plan.

Browser last-modified time is not the same as the date the photograph was taken. This tool does not establish capture time from an image's EXIF metadata for duplicate decisions.

Limits still apply

Same-size images up to 128 MiB each can be hashed. Larger images and read failures remain unverified candidates; unsupported previews do not automatically prevent eligible hashing. A supported extension or browser-native decoder determines whether an image can be shown in Viewer.

For a careful review workflow, read review duplicate files safely. To understand hash evidence, see how duplicate detection works.