After I posted about the tons of files clogging my Photos app, a friend got in touch.
“Something like 40% of what’s kept in data centres is ‘dark data’,” she wrote. “Duplicate photos, old email chains, business records that might be needed one day. So your endearing personal dilemma is frying my planet.”
She’s right.
Which reminded me of an app I’ve used a few times. It’s called Clever Cleaner. It finds duplicate photos, shows you your largest files, and lets you swipe through pictures – left to delete, right to keep.
Of 65,000+ pictures on my phone, just 2,414 account for 99% of the storage space. Which means 62,000 files account for just 1%.
I’ve been through the largest files and compressed many of them, though mostly they’re films I want to keep.
Yesterday I deleted 124 files and saved more than 4GB. That’s not nothing.
I wish I could say I have time to swipe through the rest, but I don’t, and I probably won’t. The best I can do is work through the duplicates and “similar” photos – and that’s worth doing.