duplicate file finder/cleaner

[sys-eng]

What program do you recommend for finding and cleaning duplicate files?

 

[Disposable_Me]

I've never personally ran into a situation where I needed to remove duplicate files. I either don't know how much space is being allocated to folders (Treesize Pro / Windirstat) or syncing a directory because a transfer failed halfway (Total Commander, Teracopy, goodsync, a billion others)

I can imagine scanning for actual duplicates to be a very slow process, having to hash every file and do a lookup on every file after that to see if it's already been found.

 

[GoldTechPC]

I have used this in the past to find duplicates on a network drive, worked well

 

[Blue]

I know at some point, some(one) will mention Auslogics Duplicate File Finder. While I'm sure it works for others just fine and dandy, my own experience was Hellish and probably unique. Somehow it didn't just nuke the duplicate files. Oh no. It nuked everything it found which it "thought" was a duplicate, i.e. it deleted the 'original' file you probably wanted to keep, plus all duplicates. I suppose I was lucky it only nuked about 30 GB of files I wanted to keep....

Even though that was, as I mentioned, probably a unique situation, and I'd swear up and down that I did nothing strange or stupid, I'm staying far away from Auslogics' program. The open-source GDuplicateFinder is one of the better FOSS tools I've come across for the purpose at hand.

 

[tankman1989]

try "duplicate cleaner". I've used it a ton and it is really great! it is very easy to use and easy to group and delete the duplicates.

 

[sys-eng]

I have clients that have copied files between their computers and now have 3 or more copies of the same file on all their computers - - usually pictures and music. It takes up a lot of space and is very messy.

I have used GoodSync before and the free version was quite good; however, the free version is too handicapped now. To buy GoodSync for 3 PC's is $40 just for the program and it must be purchased again after a few updates. After adding installation/configuration costs, the cost would be over $100 which they will not pay.

 

[sys-eng]

I know at some point, some(one) will mention Auslogics Duplicate File Finder. While I'm sure it works for others just fine and dandy, my own experience was Hellish and probably unique. Somehow it didn't just nuke the duplicate files. Oh no. It nuked everything it found which it "thought" was a duplicate, i.e. it deleted the 'original' file you probably wanted to keep, plus all duplicates. I suppose I was lucky it only nuked about 30 GB of files I wanted to keep.....

I have read stories like yours involving several of the programs which is why I am asking here. One piece of advice that I have read is to turn off anti-virus real-time scanning when performing a duplicate file scan that will involve many >1000 files to avoid conflicts & interruptions.

 

[altrenda]

I have used Auslogics and it works as well as any of these programs.

It will display all duplicate files, and if you select "all" and "delete all" it does what you tell it. You need to tell it which files to keep and which to delete.

How would it know which is the "Original" and which are the duplicates? It could do a better job of telling you this before you do anything. I always save deleted files to the Rescue Center just to be safe.

I believe iTunes works the same way with it's duplicate finder. Another reason to not like iTunes.