Application for deleting identical files. Duplicate Remover Free - program for removing duplicate files
An excellent free program for finding duplicate files (pictures, photos, music, etc.).
Let's imagine this situation... Six months ago you purchased a brand new terabyte hard drive. And so, when you try to download another movie from torrents, your PC tells you that this is how it is, but there is no more space on your hard drive :). Nightmare!!! Guard!!! How can this be, it was a whole terabyte:(((?!!
And the whole problem may lie in the fact that too many duplicate files or even entire folders have accumulated on the new hard drive.
If you start manually rummaging through your “treasures” downloaded from the Internet, you can spend more than one day finally finding two identical installers of the same program or several copies of the same song!
But you can do much wiser - instruct your PC to carry out “soul-searching” and, based on the results of this process, decide what needs to be thrown away and what to leave.
However, the basic version of Windows does not provide a function for searching for copies of files, so we will have to use third-party software for this matter. One of the best free solutions to this type of problem is the program DupKiller.
It can do almost everything you need for a comfortable and quick search for duplicate files, so it can easily compete with paid applications, for example, Duplicate File Remover:
Comparison of the DupKiller program with its paid analogue Duplicate File Remover
The only major drawback of DupKiller is the lack of support for NTFS Hard Links. That is, the program cannot create links to the selected file for it to work with several separate applications (without harm to the latter) :(.
If you are not going to rummage through folders with setup files of various programs installed on your PC, then DupKiller is just the tool that will allow you to put things in order on your hard drive.
Installing DupKiller
To install the program, we need, as always, to open the downloaded archive and run the installation file. In the first window that appears, we will be asked to select the installation language (we choose, of course, “Russian”), and then it all comes down to simply accepting the license agreements and confirming all offers :). Once the installation is complete, we will see the DupKiller working window:
DupKiller Interface
The program interface is quite simple and convenient. At the top we see a standard menu bar, which we will hardly use, on the left is a section panel, and on the right is a direct workspace with the necessary buttons and options.
A rather big advantage of DupKiller is the step-by-step automatic switching of tabs on the left panel after you perform one action or another. Thus, something like a step-by-step wizard for working with the program is implemented, which is undoubtedly very convenient for a user who is not familiar with the new interface.
By default, after launching DupKiller, we are taken to the “Disks” tab. Here we can use checkboxes to indicate those sections that should be scanned for duplicates.
For the first time, I advise you to perform a full scan in order to find out the real picture of what is going on on your entire hard drive, so don’t linger on this tab and click the “Scan” button.
After initializing the hard drive scanning process, we are automatically taken to the “Statistics” tab:
Here the entire process of scanning the hard drive is displayed in a visual form. In addition to the log file window in which DupKiller operation statistics are recorded, we can obtain some information from the status line at the very bottom of the program’s working window.
First of all, this is the number of files found. While in the statistics section, we can pause or completely cancel the scanning process, but in the latter case we will have to start a new search from the very beginning.
The scanning will not take too long (it all depends on the size of your hard drive). For example, I had 80 Gigabytes scanned in a little less than three minutes :). At the end of the process of searching for duplicates, we will be immediately redirected to the last section “List”:
Remove duplicates and other unnecessary files
In fact, this is the most important window of the program, so let’s look at it in detail. The first thing I advise you to do is expand DupKiller either to the full screen, or stretch its window horizontally so that it is convenient to see the entire status line at the bottom.
On it we will see the number of duplicate files, their total size, and when selecting duplicates to be ruthlessly destroyed, also the total size that will be freed up after their removal.
The next step is to sort all the duplicates found by the amount of space they occupy on the hard drive. To do this, you just need to left-click on the “Size” inscription (fourth column of the list).
After this, all files will be sorted in ascending order of their “appetites” for hard disk space. That is, the “heaviest” files will be at the end of the table, and the smallest ones will be at the top (you can do the opposite by clicking on “Size” again and waiting for a new list to be compiled).
Now you can start selecting unnecessary files. In the main list they are divided into groups that display duplicates of the same file in different folders (with their indication, of course).
For some types of files (text and graphic, and when the plugin is activated, also audio) DupKiller has a preview function. That is, as soon as you select a specific file, a window immediately pops up in which you can see its contents without opening it.
For small files, using this function seems quite convenient, but large files take quite a long time to open, which greatly slows down both the operation of the program and the system in general.
Therefore, I advise you to deactivate this function by clicking the “Disable Preview” button (you can re-enable it by clicking the “Preview” button on the toolbar above the list of files).
When all the preparations are completed, all we have to do is tick the unnecessary duplicate files and click the “Delete selected files” button on the toolbar. That's it - we got rid of excess ballast on the hard drive and freed up much-needed space for re-cluttering :).
As you can see, everything turned out to be quite simple - you were able to “conquer” an impressive amount of space on your hard drive the first time without any additional installations.
However, DupKiller is by no means devoid of subtle settings, but on the contrary, it is simply replete with them. As you understand them, more and more new functions of the program will open up for you! Let's look at the most important of them.
Additional functions
So, DupKiller allows you to scan not only the entire hard drive at once, but also individual folders:
Files and folders
To configure the directories to be checked for duplicate files, you need to go to the “Files and Folders” tab. There are two sections here.
In the top (“Searched files”) you can specify which types of files need to be compared (all are activated by default). And in the lower one (“Searched folders”), switching to the “Only specified folders” mode, set a list of folders that should be checked for duplicates.
Folders can be added either using the “Add” button or by simply dragging and dropping, which can sometimes be an even more convenient option.
Exceptions
The next tab - “Exceptions” - allows us, on the contrary, to specify those file extensions and folders that should not be included in the scanning process:
Settings
Working with this tab is similar to the previous one, so we will not focus our attention on it, but move on to the next section - “Settings”:
This is where you can go for a walk! :) Here we can set the criteria by which files should be compared, the degree of similarity at which the files will be considered the same, the sizes of the processed files, as well as many other parameters.
If these settings are not enough for you, then DupKiller also has “Other settings” :)
If in the previous section there were parameters related directly to the process of scanning files and folders, then these settings relate more to the program interface.
Here you can set the priority of the search process, change some parameters for displaying the list of duplicate files, and also work on saving and restoring settings. Regarding the latter, there is a little secret ;).
DupKiller can be made to work in portable mode (from a flash drive or disk). To do this, you need to activate the “Save settings” item in the “File” menu and save the file with program parameters in the folder where DupKiller is installed (by default C:\Program Files\DupKiller). Now all that remains is to copy the above folder to removable media and you're done ;).
The last group of program settings concerns the “Delete” options for files:
Here all the settings are extremely clear, so we do not focus on them, but consider the global Advantages and Disadvantages of DupKiller.
Advantages and disadvantages of DupKiller
- byte-by-byte file comparison;
- file preview function;
- flexible scanning settings;
- auto file selection function;
- ability to use as a portable application.
- There is no way to create hard links to files.
conclusions
As you can see, DupKiller has practically no disadvantages, so it can be recommended as an ideal free program for war with clones of files on your hard drive! Good luck to you and may the FORCE be with you!!! :)
P.S. Permission is granted to freely copy and quote this article, provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.
This guide is about several free and easy ways to find duplicate files on your computer in Windows 10, 8 or 7 and delete them if necessary. First of all, we will talk about programs that allow you to search for duplicate files, but if you are interested in more interesting methods, the instructions also touch on the topic of finding and deleting them using Windows PowerShell.
Why might this be needed? Almost any user who saves archives of photos, videos, music and documents to their disks for quite a long time (no matter internal or external storage) is very likely to “form” duplicates of the same files, taking up extra space on the HDD , SSD or other storage device.
Important: I do not recommend searching for and deleting (especially automatically) duplicates on the entire system disk at once; indicate your user folders in the programs provided. Otherwise, there is a significant risk of deleting necessary Windows system files that are needed in more than one copy.
AllDup is a powerful free program for finding duplicate files
The free AllDup program is available in Russian and contains all the necessary functions and settings related to finding duplicate files on disks and folders in Windows 10 - XP (x86 and x64).
Among other things, it supports searching across multiple disks, inside archives, adding file filters (for example, if you need to find only duplicate photos or music or exclude files by size and other characteristics), saving search profiles and its results.
By default, the program compares files only by their names, which is not very reasonable: I recommend that immediately after starting use you enable the search for duplicates only by content or at least by file name and size (these settings can be changed in “Search Method”).
When searching by content, files in the search results are sorted by their size, and previews are available for some file types, such as photos. To remove unnecessary duplicate files from the disk, mark them and click the button at the top left in the program window (File manager for operations with selected files).
Choose whether to delete them completely or move them to the trash. It is permissible not to delete duplicates, but to transfer them to a separate folder or rename them.
To summarize: AllDup is a functional and customizable utility for quickly and conveniently searching for duplicate files on a computer and subsequent actions with them, moreover, with a Russian interface language and (at the time of writing the review) free of any third-party software.
You can download AllDup for free from the official website http://www.allsync.de/en_download_alldup.php (there is also a portable version that does not require installation on your computer).
DupeGuru
DupeGuru is another excellent free program for finding duplicate files in Russian. Unfortunately, the developers have recently stopped updating the version for Windows (but update DupeGuru for MacOS and Ubuntu Linux), however, the version for Windows 7 available on the official website http://hardcoded.net/dupeguru (at the bottom of the page) works great in Windows 10.
All you need to use the program is to add folders to search for duplicates to the list and start scanning. Upon completion, you will see a list of duplicate files found, their location, size and “percentage” of how much this file matches any other file (you can sort the list by any of these values).
For example, in my case, one of the recently tested programs, as it turned out, copied its installation files to the Windows folder and left it there (1, 2), taking away my precious 200-plus MB, the same file remained in the downloads folder.
As you can see in the screenshot, only one of the found samples has a mark for selecting files (and only it can be deleted) - in my case, it is more logical to delete not from the Windows folder (where, in theory, the file may be needed), but from the folder downloads If the selection needs to be changed, mark the files that do not need to be deleted and then, in the right-click menu - “Make selected as standard”, then the selection mark will disappear for the current files and appear for their duplicates.
I think it won’t be difficult for you to figure out the settings and other DupeGuru menu items: they are all in Russian and quite understandable. And the program itself searches for duplicates quickly and reliably (the main thing is not to delete any system files).
Duplicate Cleaner Free
Duplicate Cleaner Free, a program for finding duplicate files on a computer, is another more good than bad solution, especially for novice users (in my opinion, this option is easier). Despite the fact that it relatively unobtrusively offers to purchase the Pro version and limits some functions, in particular the search for only identical photos and images (but filters by extensions are available, which also allows you to search only for pictures, it is possible to search only for the same music).
Just like previous programs, Duplicate Cleaner has a Russian interface language, but some elements appear to have been translated using machine translation. However, almost everything will be clear and, as mentioned above, working with the program will most likely be very simple for a novice user who needs to find and delete identical files on the computer.
You can download Duplicate Cleaner Free from the official website https://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/dcdownloads.html
How to Find Duplicate Files Using Windows PowerShell
If desired, you can do without third-party programs to find and remove duplicate files. I recently wrote about using PowerShell and this same function can be used to search for identical files across drives or folders.
At the same time, you can find many different implementations of Windows PowerShell scripts that allow you to find duplicate files, here are some options (I myself am not an expert in writing such programs):
Below in the screenshot is an example of using a slightly modified (so that it does not delete duplicate files, but displays a list of them) first script in the images folder (where there are two identical pictures - the same ones that the AllDup program found).
If creating PowerShell scripts is a common thing for you, then I think in the examples given you will be able to find useful approaches that will help you implement the search for duplicate files in the way you need or even automate the process.
Additional Information
In addition to the above programs for finding duplicate files, there are many other utilities of this kind, many of them are not free or have limited functions until registration. Also, while writing this review, I came across dummy programs (which pretend to look for duplicates, but in fact only offer to install or buy the “main” product) from fairly famous developers that are well-known to everyone.
In my opinion, freely distributed utilities for finding duplicates, especially the first two from this review, are more than sufficient for any search for identical files, including music, photographs and pictures, documents.
If the above options did not seem sufficient to you, when downloading other programs you found (and those I listed too), be careful during installation (to avoid installing potentially unwanted software), or even better - .
Hello, friends! In this article we will figure out how to implement find duplicate files on our computers. I admit, I don’t have such a problem. Usually, my computer has three partitions. The first system partition is from 50 to 100 GB, the second is for documents from 100 to 200 GB, and the third partition is for everything else. I have one folder for photos, one for music, and so on. Everything is transparent. The parents' computer is another matter. The hard drive is divided into three parts there. On the 3rd section there are two or three folders with photos + in each folder there are a bunch of subfolders. A photo folder was also subsequently formed on drive D. It’s hard to go through everything manually, and here programs for finding duplicate files will help us.
I don’t want to install a separate program for some function since there are many functions (for example, defragmentation or the same search for the same files). Accordingly, many programs will have to be installed on the computer. My position is as follows. The less you install, the more reliable and stable your computer works.
There are solutions. Find a program that is practically necessary for computer maintenance (that is, it will most likely be installed) and that would be able to search for duplicate files. It didn't take long to search. This is the already familiar and proven CCleaner from Piriform. Starting from version 4, CCleaner added this function and below we will see how it works.
Download the program from the official website
We install.
When you launch it for the first time, the window below will appear. If you select Yes, then when cleaning the computer by default, authorization on the above mail services may not be lost. Click Yes
Go to the Service tab on the left
Click on the Search Files button
To search for identical files, all you have to do is specify the necessary settings
There are not many settings and they are divided into three groups:
- Coincidence
- Pass
- Where to look and places to exclude
Let's look at each group in more detail.
Coincidence
You can search for duplicate files by Name, Size, and Modified Date. You can also combine these criteria by checking more than one box. When organizing photos on my parents' computer, the first thing I do is search for a match by Name. Most likely there will be a bunch of files saved in different places. Then, it will be interesting to search for a match by Size. Since the photo can be renamed, but the size should not change.
How to effectively use the search for duplicates with the Changed checkbox enabled has not yet occurred to me. If you have options, please write in the comments. Perhaps if you took and added something to the photo without changing the name. But, in this case, with great probability, the size will change.
Pass
Which files should be skipped when searching for duplicates. The following options are possible here:
- Bytes with size 0
- Read-only files
- Size less than x MB
- System files
- Hidden files
Where to look and places to exclude
Here, using the Add button on the Inclusions tab, you specify where to look for duplicate files. On the Exceptions tab, add places on your hard drive, flash drive, or external hard drive where you do not want to search.
In principle, everything is simple. To reset the settings, press the corresponding button.
When the filter is configured, click Find.
Sorting duplicate file search results
The result is an easy-to-view table with search results. Moreover, the table is formed immediately when any duplicate is detected.
Suspected duplicates are separated among themselves. The only thing I would like to see in this table is sorting by clicking on a column.
When you right-click on a file, a context menu appears that allows you to conveniently sort the search results. This is especially true if there are a lot of results.
The Exclude item allows you to remove all files from the folder you select. For example C:\Program Files. The Limit item will leave only files from the folder you select in the search results. The Select duplicates option allows you to select all files located in the folder you select. The remaining points seem to be clear.
The Open Folder option is very useful. Using it, you can quickly go in and see where the file is located and whether there are any identical files there that were not included in the results table or were eliminated by sorting.
All that remains is to figure out which of the files should be left and the rest deleted using the button at the bottom right.
Conclusion
This is how I’m going to look for duplicate files on my and other computers using good old CCleaner. For my purposes, the program's functionality is sufficient. If you need more, then DupKiller is worth a look. This is a free program, you can read about it and download it from the official website http://dupkiller.com/index_en.html. DupKiller has much broader capabilities to customize the search. It also includes viewing graphic files and listening to audio. An interesting feature is the ability to specify not an exact match of files, but up to a certain level (percentage).
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This program will help you quickly and easily remove duplicate files from your computer's hard drive. With this tool, you can clear your computer of duplicate files, free up disk space, and improve the performance of your PC. Duplicate Remover Free is a very simple utility with an intuitive interface. Open the installation file, select the folder where you want to install the program, and after a couple of minutes you will be able to work with it. After starting the program, specify the folder or drive where you want to search for duplicates and click the "Start" button. On the next tab you will see the results of searching for duplicate files. All you have to do is mark those that you don’t need and give the program the command to delete them. As you can see, everything is very simple.
Removing copies of files that are clogging your hard drive
Why delete identical files? This free program will be simply irreplaceable if the user works intensively on a computer or laptop. For example, you should use it regularly if you create and edit a large number of different documents. When changing files, users often save the original document just in case, and store the new version either in a different folder or under a different name. Over time, the need for the original version of the file disappears, but, as a rule, they forget to delete the original file. As a result, multiple copies of files are stored on the computer's hard drive, which clutters the hard drive, causes confusion, and takes up a lot of free disk space. This program, which searches for clones, will very quickly find all duplicate files and delete them.
Automatic and safe removal of duplicates
Very often, users prefer to search for duplicate files manually, fearing that the program that searches and removes duplicates will automatically delete some important duplicate files. These fears are in vain, since this utility cannot delete anything without the user’s knowledge. The program deletes only those duplicate files that the user himself has marked for deletion. When working with this utility that searches for duplicate files, it is important to remember that the resulting report shows all versions of the files, including the original. Therefore, when marking files for deletion in the resulting list, you must leave at least one of them.
Using minimal PC resources
Duplicate Remover Free is the best software for finding and removing duplicates also because it is free. The version of the program, which you can download from the link below, does not require registration and is absolutely free. The intuitive interface of this utility allows even novice PC users to work with it. The program is easy to install, takes up little space on your hard drive and uses a minimum of system resources. This tool is suitable for use on any version of the Windows operating system, including Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10.
Surely, any of us have duplicate files accumulated on our disk over time. Files in “Downloads” that you have downloaded several times, identical photographs and musical compositions lying in such depths that your hands simply cannot reach them. You can get rid of all this manually, but special utilities that search for identical files will work much faster for you.
A very popular “cleaner” that probably everyone has installed. Yes, it not only searches for system garbage and clears browser history and cookies, but also removes duplicate files.
Platforms: Windows, Mac.
Price: free, $24.95 for premium version.
The program searches for files with the same or similar names and identical content. Works well with music and can find identical music files even if they have different tags. In addition, dupeGuru can compare images to find not only identical, but simply similar photos.
Developed for Mac and Linux. The Windows version is no longer supported by the developer, but it can be downloaded from the official website - it is fully functional.
Platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux.
An advanced file search application that, among other things, can remove duplicates. SearchMyFiles has flexible filters so you can customize your search results the way you want.
Platforms: Windows.
A popular Mac application that searches for the same or similar files and shows you the difference between them. Copies in “Photos”, in the iTunes music library - nothing will pass by Gemini 2. The developers have announced a smart duplicate search mechanism that remembers which files you leave and what you decide to delete.
Platforms: Mac.
Although AllDup is free, it does a lot. Searches for, deletes, copies and moves duplicate files, including identical audio recordings with different tags. There is a flexible search setting. Using the built-in viewer, you can examine files and choose what to delete.
Platforms: Windows.
Duplicate File Finder quickly and efficiently finds duplicate files. Provides an interesting opportunity to search for duplicates not only on the hard drive, but also on the local network. Can work with images and music, comparing both tags and content. The preview function will help you figure out what to really delete and what to leave. Unfortunately, quite a few options are not available in the free version.
Platforms: Windows.
Price: free, $29.95 for premium version.
A universal file manager that can do anything with your files. Including finding duplicate files. You can enable the search for copies option on the search parameters tab, in the same place where you specify other attributes of the searched files.
Platforms: Windows.
DupeGuru looks like the most attractive option. It's free, but it offers all the necessary features to rid your drive of accumulated junk. The only sad thing is that development of the Windows version has been stopped. For Windows users who don't want to pay for commercial alternatives, AllDup is a better choice. CCleaner and Total Commander are more universal and widespread solutions that are probably already installed on everyone.
