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If you have been using a computer for a decent amount of time, you know how important it is to learn how to properly manage your files and folders. For the most part, Windows makes it easy to organize your files in different folders and subfolders. But while creating new files and saving or copying existing files, you might end up with some duplicates and could have some difficulty finding them all so you can move or delete them.
Fortunately, there are tools out there that can help and in this article, we will be showing you how to find duplicate files for free with Duplicate File Finder. This app is easy to use and very effective. It may not have all the advanced features of other duplicate file finding software but for the basics, it works great. You cand download the Duplicate File Finder software here.
The Duplicate File Finder software comes in two versions, a free or trial version as well as a licensed version that will only cost you $19 but comes with software updates, doesn’t have the nag screen, and can be used in commercial environments. There is also an installable version and a standalone version where you simply run the executable to use it.
Once you have the program open you can add folders to your search list by clicking on the Add button or dragging and dropping them into the top window of the app. In our example, we will be searching for duplicate files in the Documents folder, Pictures folder and the entire E drive on the computer.
Once you have your folders added to the app, simply click on the Start button to begin the process.
You will then be shown the duplicate files grouped together by name with checkboxes next to each one. You can then click on the Check button and have it automatically check the duplicates if you like or you can check them manually. If you have it check the duplicates for you but want to have the other copies of the files checked, you can click on the Inverse option.
The Files tab will show all the files while the Duplicates tab just shows the duplicates. The number of files for each will be displayed on the tab as well. Once you have the correct duplicate files checked, you can click on the Move Checked Files to the Recycle Bin button to have them deleted.
You can also view your duplicate files by size rather than name by clicking the Size option. This will show you files that might have different names yet are the exact same size.
The Content (SHA-1) option (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) is a cryptographic hash function that generates a unique 160-bit hash value for a given file. When finding duplicate files, SHA-1 is used to compute hash values for the contents of each file. If two files have the same SHA-1 hash, they are likely identical in content. This method is more reliable than comparing file names or sizes, as it ensures that even small differences in file content produce distinct hash values.
The Edit File Mask option can be used to show only duplicate files of a certain type. For example we only want to find duplicate Microsoft Word documents in the Documents folder. To do so, we will change the file mask to *.docx since .docx is the file extension used for Word documents.
We will also change the file mask to *.jpg to only find JPEG image files in the Pictures folder.
Now when we click on the Start button to find the duplicate files, it will only show results with Word documents and JPEG files.
Once you have your results, you can check the ones you like just like you can when using the other methods.
As you can see, it’s easy to find duplicate files with the free Duplicate File Finder app. You can also check out this free duplicate file finder app as well.
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