PC utilities forum: How can I get rid of all my duplicate files in multiple hard drives?

I have a program that will show my duplicate files and I can read they're the same files it finds.

My question is if there is 2 or more files of anything is it safe to delete all but the one file? Getting rid of the duplicated files.

Wayne

The answer is yes. You can delete all the duplicates you find leaving only the original file. Pictures and music are not too much of a problem, but beware of .dll and other operating files. Sometimes different programs use the same name for such files which are needed by the opereating program. Usually, the program knows where to search (in its own folder), so it is possible that deleting such files might make the file unlocateable.

There is also a very good program for music dupes called oddly enough DMFF Duplicate Music File Finder which allows you to search across many drives and folders and will show the name and duration of each music file. Good luck.

Try using Glary Utilities. It will find all your duplicate files, list them, and give you the choice as to what you would like to do. It works really well, and it is free for the basic program.

No, they are all the instances you have. Since your program is too dumb to tell the difference you have to decide now, which is the original you want to keep and which is the duplicate. SO don't erase them all or you'll go from haing two of everything to having zero. In which case I hope you have decent backups (another form of duplication, but quite welcome at times ...)

There is no software yet that I know of that tells you what to do with the duplicate files it finds. There must be hundreds of programs that find duplicate files for you. Some just report, others give you an option to tick the ones you want deleted, and so on.

So, before you even go and find duplicates - on external drives, in backup images etc, it can be a time consuming job - think of a strategy: As we all know, it is reckless to have only one copy of your data.

But do you just want one backup of your current files? Two copies in two different locations are better. What about historical backups?

Consider this: Somehow you manage to lose a file. It is important but you don't access it all the time. You make a backup and discard the old one. The new backup doesn't have the file - you deleted it before you took the backup. If you didn't keep some historical backups (archives) around your file is now gone for good. Same thing if you didn't lose it but it got infected by some virus. If you back up the infected file over the last or only good copy - end of story.

So, having all kinds of historical backups around is not all bad. And the $30 to buy a duplicate finder program could also buy you another external drive to back things up to once again and get some extra redundancy.

No - you don't want just one backup of everything any more than you want the mess of duplicate copies of ancient backups. You want an archive of one backup every so many months, and a second copy of that at your friend's house (have it encrypted if you don't trust him/her that much ...)

I just started exactly that - took a 2TB external drive and collected all backups on it, compared them a bit, also compared what I found on old drives in the grab bag and of course what was online on the drives in my active computers. It is - as you will doubtlessly find out - a time consuming job, but it will get better once the foundation is laid. Then, once you have all the backups you want, make the duplicate copy and then go back and eliminate all the spurious copies you found all over the place. You may get a lot of the disk space back that you invested into your archive, but that is the last thing that should worry you at the current prices.

The main reason I am doing this is so that I know what I have and where - for a few years now I could start a hunt for a file in many locations. I usually would find it, but there was no method, no "algorithm" to the search, and thus no guarantee of success.

Did you notice that I didn't even start discussing what program to use? That is because there is no program that will do for you automatically what I just described. And for the rather mundane task of finding files on your drives and comparing them by name, timestamp and contents most of the available programs will do an equally adequate job.

I would think if they don't have the answer "to the actual question" that 'you' just pass on their answer.

I use several programs which will do the job. One is Total Commander for general uses and can compare files in different directories so that you can determine if they are identical or have different dates but the same size etc. Also, there is a utility called JV16 that allows you to do many things, one of which is to identify duplicates. The thing is that you can determine the level of similarity, like some files were pictures which you renamed without deleting the original file. So you may need to determine which program will allow you to detect files across folders; JV16 seems to be very good at that as long as I use a low enough folder to allow it to search across sub-folders, which are higher level. There are also several programs that will do this with specific programs, like Marlelsoft dup eliminator for iTunes

I have used Auslogics Dup file finder but it only oicks out music and videos even though I clicked on the all files sign Easy dup 'found over 1800 dup files even though I haven't got that many on my computer and I was trying to get rid of duplicates in a folder of 800 poetry files .
Wyn Windows 7

I use this periodically. It makes it easy since it lists them side by side. Just click and delete. It also has dozens of other tuneup tools. I routinely put this on customers computers. Well worth the $30

http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/content/duplicate-cleaner

Duplicate Cleaner available from the link above is fast and will find duplicate files if the content is the same regardless of file names or dates and has a lot of functionality built into it.

See screenshots: http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/content/duplicate-cleaner/screenshots

http://download.cnet.com/Comodo-System-Cleaner/3000-2094_4-10909697.html

It got pretty good reviews from the editor too!

Cheers!

Unless you know exactly WHAT you are deleting, removing duplicate system files could render your system inoperable. IF you don't know what you are deleting, don't do it. If they are duplicate pictures, you are fine, but if they are duplicate exe or dll files or if you have the default windows settings that don't TELL you what you are deleting, it's risky business.

I've used SpaceMan99 found at extrabit.com. It identifies all duplicates, triplicates, etc. and let's you quickly jump to the file or folder where the duplicates reside.

Why cant this be included in Windows??? Windows left a lot to be desired... Anyway, my idea about dealing with duplicates or "dummy" and tripilcates is to buy a huge hard drive to move all those files to then search the entire harddrive in one folder. Now you can get all files in order by name and start looking down the long, long,,long, long list of zillions of files and delete all the duplicates and triplicates in rows..
As matter of factly , I just bought a huge 500 gb hard drive that I am gonna do the project when I find time to do so.. I am staring at my brand new 500 gb drive and thinking "when, when?? {