Nobody else can make that decision for you, and certainly an application can't do it for you.ĭuplicate Finder is a powerful search tool if used right, but like any tool you have to learn to use it and use it carefully. When all is said and done only you can decide which files you want to keep and which you don't. There is an option to save a list of duplicates found to a text file. So, if searching like in my above example, you have to look at the pathnames of the duplicates found and decide which you want to keep - which may be all of them anyway. It's quick - much, much quicker than you having to search hundreds (thousands?) of files for yourself.īut once it has found the duplicates that match your specified parameters only you can decide which of them you may want to get rid of. (It also ingnores files with the same name that aren't duplicates, because I didn't tell it to look at names). That makes sure that they are indeed duplicates, no matter what they are called. I will then set the pathname and file type(s) according to where I want to search and what type of file I am looking for, and if I want to search subdirectories as well.ĭuplicate finder will check the locations I specify for files with the same size and if it finds any then check if the actual contents of the files are identical. These are my usual settings when I'm looking for duplicates that may be in different directories (folders) and/or with different names: (Although sometimes you may want to find different files with the same name, so that you can then rename one).Įg. You need to be careful and think about just what you tell the duplicate finder to look for.ĭifferent files can have the same name as each other, and copies of the same file (duplicates) can have different names.īut if you search for duplicates using just 'size' and 'content' then you can be sure that they are indeed the same thing. Photo and music duplicates are the things that get searched for most, by far. So it's best to not even to search for duplicate system files, unless you are a technician troubleshooting a problem.Īs a general user you usually want to be looking for duplicates of your own images, videos, music, & documents. Many system files need to be duplicated in different locations, and removing any of the duplicates could stop some apps working properly. Looking at system files is an advanced option for someone technical looking for possible problems with the system. The second thing to say is that normally you should have it set to ignore system files and hidden files. ![]() It can help you save space by suggesting some files that you may not need to have more than one copy of, for instance video files and music files can take up a lot of space on your drive(s), and many people have lots of photos - some of which will be copies. ![]() The first thing to say is that the Duplicate Finder is not a system cleaning tool (as such).
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