Duplicate-file-finding programs expect you to manually check each file for deletion. That's not practical for Edward Derbyshire, who has '121,000 duplicates' to delete.
Before I tell you how to delete all of your duplicate files automatically--without checking each one first--let me give you a warning: Doing so requires you to let software make decisions best left to you. Are the files really duplicates? Is there a good reason for that file to be in two different locations? And if not, in what folder should the file reside?
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So before you go the automated route, consider a safer option: Set your duplicate file finder to ignore files smaller than 20MB. That way, you'll have far fewer files to worry about, yet still free up a lot of space.
Remove Duplicate Files Free Software
If you use Digital Volcano's Duplicate Cleaner Free (the program I recommended in How to find and remove duplicate files), you'll find that option under File Sizes on the Search Criteria tab. Uncheck Any Size and enter
20000 in Minimum File Size field.
If you still want the program to automatically select files to delete, use your duplicate file finder's automatic selection tool. Here's how to do that in Duplicate Cleaner--Free or Pro:
First, make sure you only get true duplicates. In the Search Criteria tab, check both Same Content and Same File Name.
And make sure that Don't Scan System Files/Folders is checked. In fact, you may want to click the Scan Location tab and explicitly tell the program only to look in the folders where you keep your documents, photos, and so on.
When you're ready, click the Scan Now button.
After the scan to complete, go to the Duplicate Files tab and click the Selection Assistant icon (it's the one with the magic wand) and select Mark>Select by Group>All but one file in each group.
Once the program has made all of the selections, click the File Removal button and decide how you want the files disposed.
Looking for some utilities to find duplicate files and photos on your computer quickly and easily? I recently organized all the data that my father had stored on multiple computers and multiple external hard drives into one safe backed up location, but found that there were duplicates of pretty much everything. There was no way I was going to manually try to figure out what was the same and what was a duplicate, so I went ahead and tried out a couple of duplicate finder programs.
In this article, I’ll mention the ones I used and give a short overview of how the program works, its effectiveness and any issues that I ran into. It’s worth noting that you should never completely trust the results of a duplicate finder program because there are always scenarios that can confuse the search algorithms and give you false positives. So always double-check once before you delete anything.
Also, it goes without saying that you should definitely make a backup of all data before you start this process just in case. Once you are certain the correct data was deleted, then you can get rid of the original backup.
NirSoft SearchMyFiles
If you’re looking for some of the most useful software tools for Windows, then NirSoft should be the first place you look. One of their tools is SearchMyFiles, which is basically a super search engine for your local files and folders. It has a ton of filters that let you search by wildcard, by file dates, by file content, by file size, by file attributes, etc.
It also has a search mode called Duplicates Search. Once you download and run it (no need to install), just click on the drop down at the very top and change the value to duplicates search.
Next, you choose the base folder where you want the search to start from. As you can see, everything else is self-explanatory. If you’re only looking for duplicate files and want to find all of them, then don’t change any of the filters or settings. By default, they are configured to search everything. If you want to restrict the types of files scanned, then you should use the filters.
Go ahead and click Start Search and you’ll get the results in a pop up window. I tried my tests on the sample photos included with Windows 7 and it worked fairly well. Even though the file names for the photos were different, it seems to find duplicates based only on size. If they are the exact same size, the files are considered duplicate. When I resized one of the photos, it no longer showed them as duplicates even though it was the same photo, just a different size.
This method of searching is good, but it’s not perfect for photos because there may be times when you have the same photo with two different names or the same photos in different sizes. I also ran into issues with documents that had the same contents and even the same name, but were slightly different in size and therefore didn’t show up in the results. It would have been nice if they also showed files with the same name even if they have different sizes.
It really depends on what your goal is, but I’ll mention other programs that search differently in case this is not what you’re looking for.
Duplicate Cleaner
Duplicate Cleaner Free is a bit better than the NirSoft utility because it has more advanced options for the search criteria. Firstly, you have to choose whether you want to find files with the same content or if you want to ignore the content. Then you can also choose options like Same File Name, Similar File Names and Same Size.
Using these criteria, you can perform more complicated searches for duplicates like searching for all files with the same name, but not necessarily the same size and searching for all files with the same content, but not necessarily with the same name.
Once you choose the search criteria, you then have to add the search locations. Go ahead and navigate to the folder and then click the little arrow button to move that folder to the Search Paths side.
When you are done, click the Scan Now button at the top and the results will show in the Duplicate Files or Duplicate Folders sections.
Now to get rid of the files, you have to click on the little magic wand icon next to Selection Assistant, click on Mark, then Select by group, then select All but one file in each group.
This will mark all files in a group of duplicates except for one. In order to delete the duplicates, you have to click on the circular File Removal icon at the top. You can mark files with different criteria also, but this is the easiest way when trying to get rid of duplicates.
You may have also noticed the Image Mode and Audio Mode under Search Criteria and both work very well, but not all of the features are free. The image mode option is the best, but it requires you to purchase the Pro version for $30. I would highly recommend the Pro for anyone who really has to deal with a ton of duplicates including photos and audio files because I used it and it saved me a lot of time the free version could not accomplish.
With image mode, you can find similar images even if they have a different resolution or have been rotated or flipped. Audio mode will let you search for duplicate songs by metadata for free, but if you want to compare the actual audio data, you’ll have to purchase the Pro version.
Fast Duplicate File Finder
If you’re looking for just finding exact duplicates, then Fast Duplicate File Finder is a good choice. The free version will let you find unlimited exact duplicates, but only 10 groups of similar files. The similar files functionality is quite useful since it can help you find documents like Word docs that are exactly the same in terms of content, but for some reason have different sizes and other slight variations.
However, that functionality along with a few other features like filters and the ability to delete the duplicate files will set you back $40, which is a way too high for a program that just finds duplicates. However, the free version does a good job of finding exact duplicates.
Just click Add Folder at the top to select the folders you want to search for duplicates, then choose your search method and finally click the Start Scan button. By default, the free version will give unlimited results for 100% Equal Files, which means they have to be the exact size.
Again, this program would not show me the two Word files that had the same name and had the same contents because they were slightly different in size. When I chose the Similar Files option and set the Similarity value to 75%, then it showed them correctly. However, it will only show you 10 groups of similar files in the free version, which is kind of annoying.
Overall it is a good program, but only useful for exact duplicates. Works best with multiple copies of pictures, videos or audio files and not so well with documents.
Anti-Twin
It’s got a funny name, but Anti-Twin is another good duplicate finder that has a clean interface and doesn’t try to bombard you with ads. As with most of the other programs mentioned above, it doesn’t quite catch all the duplicate documents unless you search by identical file name. Usually with documents, it’s rare that you’ll have duplicates with a different name, so these programs will still work for most people.
In Anti-Twin, you have to choose from either one or two “base” folders and then from a couple of options. If you have two folders under a main folder, then you can simply choose the top-level folder as a base folder and then check the Include subfolders box. You would then select Only files in different subfolders for comparison.
If you have two folders that are in completely different locations, choose one base folder then check the 2nd folder box and choose the second folder as another base folder. Then you would check the Only files in different basic folders box. You can also select Compare all files to compare everything in the base folders and/or subfolders to each other.
For Comparison methods, you can either Compare names or Compare content or compare both. Note that if you check both boxes, the comparison will before an AND operation meaning that both criteria will need to match in order for it to show as duplicate.
Click the Search for duplicate files button and you’ll be brought to the next screen where you can see the results. What I really like about this program is the ability to compare images (pixels) when searching for duplicate pictures. Basically, if you have two images that are the same, but one is of lower resolution, you’ll want to click Compare Content and then click the Compare Images (pixels) radio button. Reduce the percentage to 95% of less and then perform the search.
As you can see, I had two files with the same name, but different sizes due to the resolution. When you reduce the match percentage, you’ll see a new checkbox called inc. 100%, which basically will show you the pictures that are exact duplicates also. Otherwise, you’ll only see the ones that are similar, but not exact matches.
So there you have four programs that have different advantages and disadvantages, but get the job done. There are a ton of other duplicate remover programs, but a lot of them have ads or come bundled with junkware. If you have any questions or issues, post a comment. Enjoy!
Duplicate Cleaner helps you make some more room on your PC's hard drive by removing unnecessary or copied files in bulk. This program delivers exactly what you would expect based on its name, and it does it quickly and effectively. You won't believe how much space it frees up.
The program's slick interface is a welcome change compared to what you might expect from utility programs. Scanning any drive or file location takes only one or two clicks. It only took the program about 90 seconds to scan a 20 GB drive that had about 2,500 files. The list of files was a little hard to read, but the color-coding of separate, duplicate pairs helped a lot. Deleting the files means going through several different confirmation screens, which was a little annoying. It's nice that Duplicate Cleaner was looking out for rookie users and making sure they didn't delete anything that they actually wanted. The pro version of the program costs around $30 and adds a few advanced searching features. Most folks won't need the paid version, though. The free version is more than you could really ask for.
This program quickly searches for and kills any duplicates from your hard drive. If Duplicate Cleaner could do it in fewer clicks, it would be perfect. However, the extra effort is worth it to save a few users from deleting something they really need.
What do you need to know about free software?
Remove all identical files from your system with the complete media editor tool to separate your media files individually and delete their copies from your storage. For any help on how to use this app, please go to http://videopixstore.com/ Reduce the uneven space acquired by duplicate saved media easily. Instant media remover for your Windows 10 device to delete multiple copies of a single file flexibly and simply. Features: - Live status viewer of the file processing - Group view of the media files stored on the device - Easily navigate multiple pictures and music files on your device - Find individual files with multiple copies for deletion including the original file - File editor & modifier with simple editing tools and file browser - Custom or complete scan options of the file system to sort files easily - Quick file scan for multiple file operations - Skip any file while scanning and jump to another file - Custom folder selects from your storage device - Custom sort with pictures, videos, music and documents files on your device - Multiple file type support like Mp3, PDF, Docx, Mp4 and almost every other file type or extensions - Support Universal Windows Platform for flexibility and responsiveness It includes editing tools for modifying, custom selection and delete, many others to explore. Combination of nice design and friendly user interface. App also includes alternative tuning options such as open file and even custom delete features. Avoid any replication of your personal data or files with the productivity tool on your windows device to edit music, documents, videos or pictures smoothly. Download the app today! Contact us: Web: http://videopixstore.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/videopixstore Twitter: @VideoPixStore Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videopix/ Support Email: [email protected]
HomePCWindows10 Best Duplicate File Finders for Windows in 2019
No computer system today is free of problems. Some are plagued with them right off the bat; others develop issues over time. Then there’s variation in the nature of system issues as well. Some problems arise because of poor programming of the operating system itself, while others may happen due to user issues. Thanks to effective quality control measures, coding issues are not that big a deal these days, since they’re either eliminated at the quality control stage, or fixed as they get identified.
User issues, however, are a different story altogether. Because they’re influenced by behavior and usage habits, they tend to pop up time and time again. And because a lot of human beings are inherently programmed a certain way, several user issues share a common ground. One such issue that you’ll find in almost all modern computer systems is the presence of duplicate files. What it simply means is having multiple copies of the same file, be it photos from your latest holiday to one file getting downloaded several times to many copies of that Word document that you’d been working on for some time.
Duplicate files is a problem because not only they clutter the hard drive, they also take up precious disk space, especially if the duplicates are of a particularly large file. Windows by default doesn’t come with a feature that can get rid of these pesky duplicates with ease. On the contrary, it can become quite a challenge to clean up duplicates because folder structures can get out of hand really fast. Luckily, there’s a good selection of third-party duplicate file finders out there that can do the job for you, and do it well. In this list, we take a look at some of the best duplicate file finders for Windows which you can use in 2019.
Note: When looking for duplicates in your system, always remember to limit your search to just your user folders and not “clean up” anything from the operating system’s folders, as that can negatively impact the stability and working of your computer.
Best Duplicate File Finders for Windows in 20191. XYplorer
XYplorer is a dedicated duplicate file finder; in fact, it’s a fully equipped and highly capable dual-pane file manager for Windows that comes with a “Dupes” detection feature. The option lies within the program’s Find Files feature where you further have the option of singling out duplicates in your search location. The reason it’s highly recommended is because of how it approaches duplicates – listing them by Name, Date Modified, Size and Content – and how it presents all duplicates found in grouping for easy cleaning. When finding duplicates by Content, you can either use MD5 or even do a byte-by-byte comparison, which, although slow, is the most accurate method out there that exists.
XYplorer is a paid software that costs $39.95 for a single-user license. It comes with a free trial, and there used to be a free version that has been discontinued as of January 2017. With a little search, you might still be able to find the free version online with the caveat of not getting any future updates.
Download XYplorer for Windows (Free trial, $39.95)
2. Easy Duplicate Finder
Another paid utility that prides itself for a diverse and one-click operation. Easy Duplicate Finder is aimed at users who’re looking to quickly get rid of duplicates from a variety of sources, including duplicate tracks in iTunes, Photos, Windows Media Player, Google Drive and Dropbox apart from their traditional folder structure. It offers various scanning modes and compares files by size, name and content. Easy Duplicate Finder comes with a wizard mode that makes it easier to specify what kind of clean up you want to do.
Easy Duplicate Finder starts at $39.95 for a single user license and works with Windows XP through Windows 10. The software comes with a limited, demo version, and a Mac version also exists. If you are looking for duplicate file finders for Windows, this is something you should check out.
Delete Duplicate Files Free Download
Download Easy Duplicate Finder for Windows (Limited demo version, $39.95)
3. Auslogics Duplicate File Finder
Auslogics Duplicate File Finder is a totally free solution that offers the same kind of features that several tools would charge you for. The program can scan your specified folders for duplicates and presents them in a fairly neat interface that makes it easy to manage the found culprits. There are various search parameters that you can define, including file types, minimum/maximum file size, names, creation dates and the like.
File content is matched based on MD5 checksum, but there’s no byte-by-byte comparison (MD5 is still fairly accurate for real-world use). You can also decide what happens to the duplicates that are found, whereby they can be sent to the recycle bin or rescue center, or deleted forever. This software, too, supports one-click operation, although with a less friendlier user interface. As far as free duplicate file finders for Windows go, this is the best option on the market. Heck, it even gives the paid options a run for their money.
Download Auslogics Duplicate File Finder for Windows (Free)
4. Wise Duplicate Finder
Wise Duplicate Finder is one of the fairly capable duplicate file finders for Windows PC which uses the file name, file size, and content to find duplicate files on your system. The app is really good at finding and deleting duplicate files so that you can release storage space on your system which otherwise would have been occupied. The Wise Duplicate Finder supports almost all kinds of file types including images, videos, documents, and more. So, no matter which duplicate files are hiding on your system, it can effectively root them out like weeds in the garden. Another good feature of this app is that it can also find empty files and delete them for you.
Most of the times when you perform a cleanup of your system, some residual files are left behind which can mess up your organization system. Instead of finding and deleting such files one by one, you can use Wise Duplicate Finder to deal with them in just a few clicks. My favorite feature of this app is the backup and restore system which allows me to recover files which I might have deleted by mistake. This adds a layer of protection which allows me to delete duplicates without any hesitation. The app is free to download and use for a period and then you will have to upgrade the paid plan which costs
Download Wise Duplicate Finder for Windows (Free trial, $19.95)
5. Duplicate File Detective
Duplicate File Detective is another paid utility that offers more features than you can easily count. While the traditional options of finding and eliminating duplicate files – in a variety of manners, of course – is there just like you’d expect, the Detective takes it up a notch by adding the ability to scan network drives (something that’s amiss in all of our previous recommendations), replacing removed duplicates with symbolic links to the originals (should you desire that), and providing a wealth of reporting options on detected duplicates including stating the owners of the duplicate files (very useful for MS Office files, for instance).
Reporting can also be done on file types and hash values, and reports can be exported or even scheduled for automatic emailing. In a nutshell, Duplicate Files Detective takes it a notch beyond just finding and removing duplicates all the way to keeping tabs on what those were and how they came to be. Oh, and the user interface is very similar to MS Office products, so you’ll feel right at home using this utility. This one is one of most trusted duplicate file finders for Windows.
Duplicate Files Detective is also one of the most expensive options out there, with a single user license starting at $55 with only minor updates included. Still, considering the unique features that it offers, the expense is worth it. There’s also a 15-day trial before you make the purchase.
Download Duplicate Files Detective for Windows (Free trial, $55)
File Delete Software Free Download6. CloneSpy
CloneSpy is another free utility that, despite featuring a dated interface, does the job very well. The software works the same way as many paid solutions do, and even offers a byte-by-byte comparison for finding duplicates. It can even find duplicates for files between your local hard drive and network drives – something that’s hard to find even in paid solutions.
What’s more, CloneSpy also finds duplicates that are not exact matches, in that if you have two files that share the same name but a little different content (several versions of the same Excel report rings a bell?). It also allows you to not only rid the duplicates, but also generate reports of all dupes found in your scan. Comparisons can be done on file names and extensions, and you get an added option to find 0 byte files (empty files). As we noted earlier, the only area where CloneSpy falls short is the interface, but otherwise works really well.
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Download CloneSpy for Windows (Free)
7. Duplicate Cleaner 4
Duplicate Cleaner 4 is a good duplicate file finder for Windows machines. It brings an easy to use interface which allows you to easily find duplicate files. It also comes with a built-in Selection Assistant which will help pick the files to remove. One of the good things about this app is that it allows you to move duplicate files to a different folder which comes in handy if you are not sure about deleting those files. The app is great at finding duplicate images even when they have been edited, music files (MP3, OGG, WMA, M4A, M4P (iTunes), AAC, FLAC, and WAV) based on artist name or title, along with folders, zip files, and more.
While it works great for all file types since this one doesn’t seem to support byte-by-byte comparison, I have mostly used for finding duplicate images and music files and it worked great for those. The app comes with a 15-day free trial after which it costs
Download Duplicate Cleaner 4 for Windows (Free Trial, $29.95)
8. Duplicate Searcher
Duplicate Searcher is arguably the most feature-rich entry on our entire list, which begs the question of why it comes so late in the collection. The simple answer is the fact that this software, despite being immensely powerful, is perhaps the least user friendly, which is why we had to push it so further down. Duplicate Searcher (the full name is Duplicate & Same Files Searcher) boasts a number of unique features, starting with the algorithm that it uses, which supports detection of NTFS hard links as well.
It offers a detailed visualization of all duplicates found, works with junction points and symbolic links (in addition to hard links), can indicate fragmentation of duplicates, offers color coded views, allows you to replace duplicates with hard links, supports file compression and much more. In MP3 comparisons, Duplicate Searcher goes beyond by ignoring the ID3 tags for comparison and does that via actual audio content! The list of features that this software boasts is immense, with most of them unique to Duplicate Searcher. Best part, you get all of this for free, only if you’re willing to get into it yourself and do a bunch of manual heavy lifting.
Download Duplicate Searcher for Windows (Free)
9. CCleaner
Piriform’s CCleaner barely needs any introduction, and this powerful, multipurpose utility also comes with a Duplicates Finder (under Tools) that makes it easy to get rid of those pesky multiple copies of the same file. Because it isn’t dedicated to finding duplicates, the options that you find in CCleaner for this purpose are rather limited, but you still get the standard affair of finding by name, type, size and content. Because byte-by-byte comparison is slow, the option is turned off by default, but you can enable it if that’s the preferred method.
You can include or exclude locations from your search, and can determine how you want to clean the files post-search. The Duplicates Finder is available in the free version of CCleaner, so it doesn’t come with any cost associated either.
Download CCleaner for Windows (Free)
10. SearchMyFiles
Similar to our first entry, SearchMyFiles isn’t a dedicated duplicate removal tool. Instead, it’s a feature-rich file search utility for Windows that supports finding duplicates. Offered for free by Nirsoft, this software offers a wealth of options when it comes to finding duplicates, including size and type filters, location and the usual deal. Color coding is available, and the software will return a summary of its findings if you want to take a quick look.
On the flip side, and perhaps a big negative, too, SearchMyFiles is essentially a file search utility, so while it will find duplicates for you, there’s no easy way to remove the duplicates. Hence, it technically fits the bill for “finding” duplicates, you’ll have to do the removal manually. On the plus side, duplicates are located only through byte-by-byte comparison, so the search is very, very accurate and thorough. SearchMyFiles is also portable, so you don’t need to worry about installing anything on your machine.
Download SearchMyFiles for Windows (Free)
SEE ALSO: 12 Best Backup Software for Windows PC in 2019
Remove Duplicate Files in Windows 10 with the Best Duplicate File Finders
So there you have it – 10 great duplicate file finders for finding and removing duplicate files. Some of these duplicate file finders are really powerful, like Duplicate Searcher and CloneSpy, but the caveat is their dated interface and the requirement for manual work. While these are free, others like XYplorer and Duplicate Detective offer a much more seamless and hassle-free interface and operation at the expense of costing you big bucks. In the end, since almost all the paid solutions offer a free trial or demo, we recommend giving these a try yourself and see which one works best for you. And drop us a comment if you have further duplicate file finders’ recommendations or feedback.
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