Removing File Copies with Duplicates Finder

Watch tutorial on Duplicates Finder

The Duplicates Finder feature detects file copies that take up space on your hard drive. It groups such identical files so that you can remove unnecessary duplicates.

To check your user folder for file copies, open Duplicates Finder, and then click Scan.

After the scan is finished, you can define the columns that should be displayed in its list of results. The Title and Size columns are always shown, but you can show more columns. To do it, right-click the column heading area, and then choose the columns that you want to display. The following options are available: Date Created, Date Modified, Last Opened, and Type. You can also click Show All Columns to display all columns.

Expand a file to see its duplicates and the paths where these duplicates are located. Duplicates Finder detects even those files that were renamed, because it compares the contents of the files instead of just names and sizes.

Important

If you click the Dups button, the system automatically leaves only the copy that has been recently updated and selects other copies for removal.

However, you should be extremely careful when you use this button. Never use this button to remove duplicates of music or photos! Only a human can define which of the files is original, so you should manually select the original. To be even more safe, go to Preferences and add to the ignore list your folders from iTunes, iPhoto and all other important stuff.

To preview the files, click Quick Look. To search for specific files, use the filter field. When the copies are selected, click Remove, and all of them will be moved to the Trash. To repeat the scan, click Scan. To search for duplicates in another folder, click Change Folder.

Please note that the Start the scan immediately checkbox is selected by default in the Open dialog. It means that the scan will start automatically after you change the folder.

Drag-and-Drop Support: Use the drag-and-drop functionality to quickly delete any item with its components.