Duplicate files can be easily created when you are exchanging data between different devices or download more than one copy of a same file in different directories or drives. Duplicate files are nothing but a waste of space and make it hard to search important files. Deleting these files is very important if you don’t want to waste space, but doing it manually is quite complicated, especially when you have thousands of them, or don’t know that they even exist.
Fortunately, there is always “an app for that”, and duplicate files are not an exception. However, deleting duplicate files isn’t an easy task, it is very sensitive and you have to be extremely careful before deleting any data – don’t blindly trust the app.
Some important files might be content duplicates (same data, potentially different names) or have identical names, with different data (different version of a file maybe), or they may be true duplicates with the same names, and same content. Some files may also be shared by several apps, so deleting them may prevent another app from running. The point is that getting the help of an app will tremendously augment your productivity.
In this tutorial, we are going to help you delete duplicate files safely without deleting any important files. The tools we will use for this purpose will be Free and very simple to use without any kind of shady stuff.
Duplicate Cleaner (Free Version)
To safely, and automatically, delete duplicate files, our best bet is to add strict filters. You can use filters to narrow down which files the software should look for and where to look for them. Fortunately, most duplicate cleaners come with built-in filters to take care of this. And when it comes to filters Duplicate Cleaner by DigitalVolcano does an amazing job.
It has both free and paid version, however, free version provides all the necessary features to fulfill our goal. Download the software and make sure you click on “Duplicate Cleaner Free” download link. It will be downloaded from download.com, but the installation is clean without any kind of toolbars or software recommendations (at least for us it was clean).
Step #1: Customize Filters
Once downloaded and installed, launch the program and you will see a simple yet attractive interface. To start filtering, click on “Search Criteria” tab first. Here you can specify what kind of duplicate files you are looking for.
For example, should the tool look for exact content match or it can differ or should the tool look for exact file names or similar may work as well. Using these options, you can narrow down or broaden the search.
The free version will only let you configure settings for regular files and audio files, for images you will have to opt for the paid version (they will still be scanned and deleted, however). If your main focus is on filtering images, then we have covered this in the next tool, you can skip directly to it.
You can use “Regular mode” and “Audio mode” to filter duplicate files according to name and content. Below you will see the heading of “More Search options”, these options basically prevent you from going deep into system files and deleting an important file. It is better to leave them like this, unless you have something special in mind.
On the right side, you will see the heading of “Search Filters”, here you can manually enter data according to date, size and name to further narrow down the search.
Step #2: Select Path
Now, click on “Scan Location” tab to provide the exact folder or drive which you would like to scan. Here, just click on the path which you want to add and then click on “Add path” button (the one with a sideways arrow on it) and it will be added in the right panel. Repeat the process to add all the folders in the right panel. You can also add a whole drive just by clicking on it and selecting “Add path”.
Note: While adding folders and drives, it is recommended that you only add the location where your Personal data is. Make sure you stay away from system files as much as possible, you never know when you may make a mistake and corrupt your PC system.
Step #3: Scan and Delete Duplicate Files
Once all the data is selected, click on “Scan now” and the tool will start scanning the specified directories. All the duplicate files will be presented in the main interface, and you can double click on each file to preview them. If you would like to “select all” to delete, press Ctrl+A to highlight all and then check or uncheck the checkbox next to any file to check or uncheck all files.
You should review all the files and make sure there are no important files added/selected. Now, to remove the selected files, click on “file removal” and from the next window click on “Delete files”. All the selected data will be deleted and you should be able to gain some space.
dupeGuru
dupeGuru doesn’t actually come with a beautiful interface, but it is a simple and completely free to use. It is an open source (free) tool and offers three different versions, dupeGuru, dupeGuru Music Edition and dupeGuru Pictures Edition. All these softwares are specially designed to find the respective duplicate files as their name suggests.
In this tutorial, we are going to review dupeGuru Pictures Edition as the above software lacked image customization option. However, the interface and options of all 3 softwares are almost same, and customizing should not be a problem.
Step #1: Install and Configure
Download dupeGuru Pictures Edition and install. Once installed, launch the program and you will see a very simple interface with not so many colors. To Configure filters, click on “View” and from the menu, select “Preferences”.
Note: While downloading, you will be offered a Windows 64-bit version of the software, which will not work on a 32-bit version of Windows. If you have a 32-bit Windows, then download the Windows XP (32-bit) version located at the bottom left corner of the screen. It will work on all PCs with Windows XP and above.
In Preferences, you will find all the filter options along with some handy preference options. Customize it according to your requirement and click on “OK” to apply the changes.
Step #2: Scan and Delete Duplicate Files
To Add folders and drives to scan, click on the “+” icon located at the bottom left corner of the screen and select the folders. Now, just click on “Scan” and the specified directories will be scanned and all duplicate files will be presented (the process might be a bit slow).
You can double click on each file to preview it and if you would like to select all, just press Ctrl+A or Click on “Mark” and select option from it. If you would like to see the details of the original file and duplicate files, click on the file and then click on “Details” button. Both files information will be displayed in a side-by-side comparison window.
You can click on “Actions” button above to select different actions to perform, including moving, copying and deleting.
Conclusion
The Duplicate Cleaner has a very intuitive interface with different filter options. However, it imposes a tiny bit of restrictions on the free version. On the other hand, dupeGuru is completely free to use and also doesn’t impose any restrictions, but it might not have the best filters as compared to Duplicate Cleaner.
If you have any questions or would like to share any other reliable Duplicate file remover tool, let us know in the comments below.
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