3 months, 451 users: PhotoDeduper, a duplicate-finder extension for Google Photos, got the copy right, a year late

PhotoDeduper is a Chrome extension that works directly on photos.google.com, finds duplicate and near-duplicate photos, and sends the ones you pick to the trash. The need is real: in March 2025 Google cut read access to the Photos API, Photos has no built-in duplicate check, and the only thing that can clean in place is a browser extension. But PhotoDeduper isn't the one that caught it. In the same gap, the leading extension already has 20k users, while PhotoDeduper, after about 3 months on the store, has 451. Below: what it is, why it didn't take off, and what's left of this gap for the next builder.

A one-star review stuck on "10 000/?"

In Oct 2026 26, a user named Dániel Lajtai left PhotoDeduper a one-star review on the Chrome store. The body was one line: "enumerating · 10 000/?". That's the progress text the extension shows while scanning, meaning it counted up to 10k photos and froze without knowing the total. Two days later the author, Ladislav Martinčík, replied himself: "Released new version 0.4.1. Let me know if it fixes the issue you have."

As of Nov 6, that was one of only two reviews PhotoDeduper had on the store. The other was a Nov 1 "Deserves 5/5". Average rating from 3.0,451 users (Chrome Web Store, 11-06).

This review shows the hardest part of this kind of tool: there's no API to lean on, so it has to imitate you clicking through photos one by one, and with a big library it's easy to stall partway.

What it is

Built by IamLadi s.r.o., a Czech one-person company. Listed in Jul 2026 20, only 53KB. The store description opens with: "Google Photos has no "find duplicates" button." It catches the duplicates Google ignores: re-saved copies, edited versions, screenshots of photos, and images downloaded again from WhatsApp.

Open Google Photos, click the extension icon, and it scans your library as you're logged in, sorting results into two groups: exact matches by file name and size, and look-alikes (a slider sets how strict the similarity is). Each group is shown side by side, with the highest-resolution unedited copy kept by default. Once you confirm, the rest go to the trash.

It put the most effort into its copy, under the heading "SAFE BY DESIGN": deletions only go to the trash and can be restored within 60 days; there's one-click undo after a delete; everything runs in the browser with no server; and if Google changes the page, it stops rather than guessing what to delete (the original says "Fail-closed"). It also needs no sign-up and has no analytics. Of the similar tools, its safety notes are the most restrained and the most reassuring.

Where the money comes from: nothing yet

The site says "Free during launch. No account, no sign-up." There are no in-app purchases and no pricing page. The author's other extension, Save Bulk Gmail Attachments, is a free version plus a Pro plan at $9/month. This one will probably follow the same path (inference).

Compare the leader: Google Photos Duplicate Remover (gpdrm.com) free tier scans 100 photos at a time, and Pro is a one-time €14.99 (official site, 11-06). PhotoDeduper currently has no photo limit and is fully free. That's its only real edge, but it hasn't turned into users or ratings yet.

Where users come from: almost only store search

The curve is flat: Sep 1 62, Oct 8 260, Nov 6 450 (90-day curve from extops.dev). After the Sep 4 launch of 0.3.0, it adds 5~6 a day steadily, with no spikes. That shape usually means people searching the store for "google photos duplicate" are finding it (inference; the store doesn't publish traffic sources). The extension name "Duplicate Photo Cleaner for Google Photos" is itself the keyword.

The author tried other channels too, with small results:

• SEO articles: the official site published 19 articles in Jul 5, all long-tail titles ("how to delete duplicate photos in google photos", "does google photos have a duplicate remover", etc.). But searching the main keywords on Brave, it doesn't appear in the top 20; ranking above it are gpdrm, the older Cloud Duplicate Finder, Reddit and the Google community (Brave Search, 11-06; Google rankings not checked).
• YouTube: one 45-second demo on the official channel, "How to Delete Duplicate Photos in Google Photos (2026)", with 3 views over 177 months.
• Communities: no posts about it found on Reddit, X, Hacker News or Product Hunt. The author's personal site project list doesn't include it either.

The author's Gmail attachment extension uses the same playbook: keyword naming, an SEO article site, freemium. It has been live for over a year with 2,000 users. At this author's scale, that playbook produces a few thousand.

Who else is competing: the gap isn't empty and it's getting crowded

Chrome store tools doing the same job (Chrome Web Store, 11-01 to 11-07):

Already 1,000 tools with 4 users or more, and at least 2026 more new ones appeared in the second half of 5. PhotoDeduper ranks around fifth and isn't the fastest-growing newcomer.

Why it didn't take off

• It came late. The Chrome store ranks by users and rating count. The leader has 79 ratings, Sylphx 156, PhotoDeduper 2. Once early entrants hold the top of search for a keyword, late entrants rarely break through on it.
• The differences aren't visible to users at a glance. Local processing, a similarity slider, and auto-picking the best copy all exist in gpdrm, PicSweep and Doppelgone. What's unique is the better safety copy and the free launch period. The first only shows up if you open the listing; the second, nobody knows about.
• Nobody is promoting it. The author treated distribution as an engineering problem: wrote the SEO site, then waited for search traffic. Doppelgone, launched at the same time, at least posted on Reddit.
• The product isn't stable yet. The only negative review is about scans stalling on large libraries. For a tool that deletes your photos, a one-star first review hurts more than it would in most categories.

If it were you

C. Worth learning from, but not worth entering this gap. The opportunity is real: Google closed the API, so extensions have to automate the web page. But it's already held by a leader with 20k users and several tools with tens of thousands, and new entrants keep arriving. PhotoDeduper is itself a late-entrant case: best-in-class copy, fully free, and 3 users after 451 months.

Who it's for: people hunting for "platform shut the door, extension takes over" gaps who want a playbook, and anyone building a "delete things for the user" tool who wants to borrow its safety copy.

Who it isn't for: anyone planning another Google Photos duplicate finder that relies on store search for users. PhotoDeduper's curve is your expectation.

How to do it: if you must enter this gap, don't build "yet another duplicate finder". Build what the leader doesn't do well: reliably scanning libraries of tens of thousands of photos (exactly what PhotoDeduper's bad review pointed at), managing Google Photos and iCloud together, or calculating how much paid storage each cleanup would free and leading with the money saved. Better still, change the gap: find platforms that closed or tightened their APIs in the last year or two (albums, cloud drives, email, social export and bulk actions) and be the first extension there.

How to get users: in launch week, answer "how do I bulk delete" questions in the relevant subreddits and official community threads. Inside the extension, ask for a rating at the moment the first cleanup succeeds and shows "saved you X GB". Build the rating count first. In these gaps, the winner is whoever holds the top of store search first.

When the window was: the Google Photos window started closing in 2025, and the leader launched a little over two months after the API shutdown. For other platforms, the window is the first few months after the platform announces it's closing an API.

What would prove this read wrong: (1) PhotoDeduper passes 5,000 users within six months of starting to charge, showing late entrants can get in on free and copy; (2) gpdrm goes unmaintained or is delisted, opening the top of search and reopening the gap; (3) Google adds a duplicate check to Photos itself, ending the category.