Duplicates and storage

zeitkapsl automatically avoids storing the same photo or video twice. This matters because the same file often ends up in several places: the same holiday photo might sit in your Camera folder, a "Best of 2024" folder, and a shared album.

How duplicates are detected

When an item is imported or uploaded, zeitkapsl calculates a fingerprint of its actual content (a hash) on your device. If two files produce the same fingerprint, they are the same file, regardless of their names or which folders they came from. zeitkapsl uses the content itself, not the filename, so renamed copies are still recognised as duplicates.

Visually similar images are not deduplicated

This catches exact duplicates, the same file byte-for-byte, even under a different name. It does not detect visually similar images, such as near-identical shots from a burst, a re-exported copy, or a slightly cropped version, those are stored and counted separately.

When a duplicate is found:

• The media is stored once and counts against your storage quota only once.
• It is linked into every album or folder it belongs to, so you still see it everywhere you expect.

This is why importing a messy library with lots of overlapping folders does not waste your storage: a photo that appears in five albums still only uses space for one copy.

Exporting keeps this efficient too

The same idea applies when you export your library with the desktop app. Each file is downloaded once and then hard-linked into every album folder that contains it, so a local export does not balloon in size just because items appear in many albums.

Deleted items and re-uploads

When you delete something, zeitkapsl records that deletion and syncs it to your other devices. This record is what prevents automatic backup from re-uploading a photo you deliberately removed. Without it, the next backup scan would simply find the file on your phone again and add it back.