Find and remove duplicate files with Duplicate Cleaner

Posted on March 18, 2008 at 6:43 am

Remember the days when hard disk sizes were tiny? It is mind boggling to think that with the huge amount of disk space we have today, it still seems like it’s not enough. The amount of media files that can be downloaded from the World Wide Web make this matter much worse.

The obvious, easy solution to this problem is to buy a hard disk with a bigger capacity, however, there are a few other alternatives – one of them is to remove redundant, duplicated files to free some hard drive space. A freeware called Duplicate Cleaner provides an easy way to help you in find and remove duplicated files from your computer.

How Duplicate Cleaner Works

First, you have to download Duplicate Cleaner and install it as you do with any Windows application out there. Next, you have to specify the location where you want the search to happen; either it is a local hard disk drive or a network drive. You can also refine your searches with the extra options available. Click the “Start” button once you are ready to search for duplicates and wait until Duplicate Cleaner shows you the results inside the “Duplicate Files” tab. From here, you can select the duplicated files and use the “Delete/Move Files” button to perform your disk space recovery.

Tip: As efficient as it may be, Duplicate Cleaner is still a computer program and you are still in charge of your actions. If you are not sure if it’s right to delete a duplicated file, just leave it be.

duplicate-cleaner-screenshot

Duplicate Cleaner Features

Able to scan local and network drives.
Selectable search location (Search Path) – folder, sub folder or drive.
System files protection – you can instruct Duplicate Cleaner to protect system files/folders, Program Files and Windows system directory from being scanned and included into the duplicated file list.

system-file-protection

4 selectable methods to determine if two files are duplicates – based on the same content (CRC), same file name, same size and same date.
Fast file scanning and accurate file comparisons.
Two scan types – “File Search” for all types of files or “Music Search” for scanning mp3, flac, wma, ape and ogg file format.
Refine duplicate file search with filters – file extensions, minimum or maximum file size. I recommend that you use the “Select File Type” windows for easy filtration of extension based searches.
“Selection Assistant” – this tool offers few options to automatically mark duplicated files. You can use this tool to effortlessly remove duplicate files based on modified time, file size or group type.

selection-assistant-screen

You can view duplicated files list by file size, path or data – I prefer to sort my list based on size so I can remove the biggest files first.
Image format files can be viewed using a built-in Image Viewer.
3 possible actions – delete files to recycle bin, move files to new location or create hard links (there will be one physical file with the file duplicate changed to be a link to that file).

dupe-cleaner-actions

Export duplicated files list to CSV format.

Based on my own experience, Duplicate Cleaner does a fantastic job in listing duplicated files from all of my hard disk drives. I bet that you can’t imagine how many redundant files are currently wasting valuable hard disk spaces in your computer. Stop guessing and claim your free space by using Duplicate Cleaner today!

This is a guest post by Syahid A. from TechMalaya

Tags: remove duplicate files, delete duplicate files, duplicate cleaner, freeware downloads

» Filed Under Free Software Downloads

Comments

6 Responses to “Find and remove duplicate files with Duplicate Cleaner”

Michael said on : March 23rd, 2008 at 10:30 pm

Thanks for the information – certainly a useful program. I wonder if you can instruct it to not remove duplicate files. I like to have duplicate files as a form of backup…

Kristian said on : September 4th, 2008 at 9:33 am

Clone Tools is another program that can find duplicate files.

The quirk compared to duplicate cleaner and other duplicate file finders is that it presents the duplicates in a more explorer like folder structure. First find your matser folder and then clean all excess duplicates of the files in the master folder with one click. Nice.

Al said on : June 25th, 2009 at 3:10 pm

Directory Report is also a good program
http://www.file-utilities.com

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March 23rd, 2008 at 6:41 pm
Delete duplicate files on your computer Says:

[...] I wrote about Duplicate Cleaner, a free program to delete duplicate files and also a list of three programs to find and remove duplicate files, one of which is Easy [...]
December 13th, 2008 at 5:36 am
99 of the best Windows freeware programs you may not know of Says:

[...] have a bunch of duplicate files on your computer! It just happens. You can use Duplicate Cleaner to find and remove those duplicate files. You can also use other programs like Easy Duplicate Finder and Duplicate File [...]
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:12 am