Duplicate Cleaner is a sophisticate duplicate file finder with lots of options to configure the scanning and duplicate file checking. The main program window is used to configure the search criteria. Duplicate Cleaner can be configured to find files based on the following parameters:

• Same content (checked by comparing MD5 hashes)
• Same file name
• Same size
• Same created date
• Same modified date
• For music files: same artist, same title, same album

Filters can be added to reduce the number of files to be scanned by the program. It is possible to configure a file size filter, which will only scan files of a specific size range, file dates, which will only scan files that have been created or modified between dates specified and file name filters that can be used to include or exclude files based on names and extensions. All file scanning parameters can be combined in the scan.

Folders, partitions and drives can be added easily in the same window. Only the selected folders will be scanned by the duplicate file finder.

The time it takes to scan the folder depends on the speed of the hard drive and computer, as well as the files and folders and how much disk space they occupy on the selected drives. A report is displayed at the end of the scan listing the number of files that have been scanned, the time it took to scan the files and the number and size of the duplicate files that have been found.

A listing of all duplicate files is then displayed to the user. Individual files can be selected manually, and a preview is available for images for a visual aid.

The Selection Assistant can aid the user if many duplicate files have been found on the system.

Here it is possible to select multiple files at once, based on lots of different criteria including:

• Shortest or longest filename
• Oldest or newest file based on creation / modification
• Smallest or largest file
• By audio attributes (keep highest bitrate, highest sample rate, longest length)
• By text patterns in file name, path, sitze and lots of other variables. Supports regular expressions
• By location based on a selected path

Once the duplicate files have been selected for removal it is possible to configure deletion options. Standard options exist like deleting the duplicates to the recycle bin / without moving them to the recycle bin. Interesting options are available to automatically rename the duplicate files, move or copy them instead or create hardlinks (only on NTFS file systems). The option to create hardlinks could be interesting for users who fear that the removal of files could result in dead links or accessibility problems.

It is additionally possible to remove empty folders in the process. Duplicate Cleaner is an impressive program that comes with lots of additional options that have not been mentioned yet. It is for instance possible to change the file comparison algorithm, include network drives in the search and to import and export the results to CSV files.

Here is the feature list of Duplicate Cleaner as listed on the developer website:

• Find Duplicate Files by content, fast!
• Cleaner hard drives means faster performance
• Fast Scanning and accurate duplicate comparison (Uses the MD5 Hash algorithm)
• Deep scans music – locate duplicate music formats (MP3, iTunes, etc)
• Flexible search parameters
• Intelligent Selection Assistant
• Search home or networked drives
• Search multiple locations
• Export / Import results in CSV format
• View Path,Size and Date of files
• Large, resizable list window
• Image preview window
• Delete duplicate files to the Recycle bin
• Move dupe files to a new location
• Turn duplicate file into hard links (NTFS file systems only)
• Protection for Windows and system files
• Supports multiple languages

Duplicate Cleaner Download And Compatibility

It is surprising that this high quality application is available free of charge. It is one of the best duplicate cleaners available for the Windows operating system. The duplicate file finder is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It should also run fine on Windows Server installations. Downloads and additional information are available at the developer website at DigitalVolcano.co.uk.

Duplicate Commander is a tool that can do that. I reviewed it a few days back, and a commenter mentioned the application Duplicate File Hard Linker in the comments.

Duplicate File Hard Linker is a command line tool, that can replace duplicate files with hard links. The program basically runs recursively through folders on one partition to detect duplicate files. Files are compared byte-per-byte to make sure they are identical, and if they are all duplicate files are deleted and replaced with hard links.

If you have read carefully you have noticed that Duplicate File Hard Linker can only perform that operation on a single partition. That’s the main difference to Duplicate Commander, which does not have that restriction.

Then again, Duplicate File Hard Linker is a command line utility which means it can be used in batch files and other scripting languages to automate the duplicate file finding process.

Command Line Parameters

Usage:

dfhl [options] [path] [...]
/? Displays the command line help.
/a File attributes must match for linking. Files with different file attributes will be ignored.
/d Debug Mode, extended output of console.
/h Process hidden files. Hidden files will be skipped per default.
/j Also follow junctions (=reparse points) in file system. Per default, junctions will be skipped and not followed.
/l Process Hard Links for Files. If not specified, tool will just read (test) for duplicates.
/m Also Process small files <1024 bytes, they are skipped by default.
/o List duplicate file result to stdout.
/q Silent Mode.
/r Runs recursive through the given folder list.
/s Process system files. System files will be skipped per default if this option is ommitted
/t Time + Date of files must match before comparing files.
/v Verbose Mode
/w Print further statistics after processing

Limitations

* Hard Links can only be created on same partition. A permission overriding link creation is not possible due to physical limitations.
* Only NTFS is supported as file system for hard links.
* All hard linked files share the same set of file attributes, security descriptors and timestamps. Changes on one file Meta attribute will reflect to the other linked file immediately. This is limited by the underlying file system.
* When removing files which are hard linked, the space will only be freed on hard drive when the last reference of the file is going to be removed.
* Already linked files can not be linked again to gain space – of course…

duplicate files

The last update of the program dates back to 2006. Despite that, it works fine on Microsoft’s latest operating systems Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. May require an elevated command line prompt. The command line utility can be downloaded from the developer’s site.

Duplicate Commander is a free software for Windows for this exact purpose. The program is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions, and requires the Microsoft .net Framework 4.0 to run.

On first glance, it looks like a standard duplicate file finder. A click on Search opens a folder browser to add folders to the search. Only a handful of options are provided, including the ability to filter by file type or size. A byte by byte comparison can be launched from the listing of results.

finding duplicate files

Duplicate Commander then processes the files in the selected directories based on the configured rules. This can take some time, depending on the speed of the hard drive, the performance of the computer and the amount of files stored in those directories. The status window displays the progress of the operation. It includes a progress bar, and information about the number of duplicates found, and their size on the disk.

duplicate files

Once the scan has finished a list containing all duplicate files found is displayed to the user in the main program interface. Duplicate files are linked, and checkboxes are provided to select some or even all to deal with them. Controls are provided to make the selection easier. It is for instance possible to click on a button to automatically select specific duplicates from the list, for instance the first or last of the group, the oldest or newest, or the duplicate with the smallest sizes.

Once duplicate files have been selected, it is possible to click on the delete button to remove the files from the system, or use the unique hard links option to create hard links to the remaining files.

Creating hard links offers an interesting alternative to deleting the files outright. Creating those links ensures that the system still acts as if the files exist in the location, even though they have been deleted by the duplicate file finder.

This obviously makes a lot of sense if the user is unsure about the consequences of deleting the files outright.

Duplicate Commander is available for download at the developer website. The hard link feature makes it a very interesting option for users who want to delete duplicate files from their system.

Duplicate file finders like Duplicate Cleaner aid the user in finding duplicate files. The software program has been designed to scan a computer system thoroughly for duplicate files. It provides access to a file search but also to a specialized music search in its interface. The music search will scan mp3, wma, ogg, flac and ape files on the computer system and compare artists, titles and albums in the meta tags plus the usual file size and file name. Files on the other hand can be checked for various parameters including crc, name, file size and date.

Specific folders and partitions can be added to the scan which will create three listings in the end. One will display the duplicate files found in the selected folders, another will display all zero byte files and the last will display all files that have been scanned by the program.

A selection assistant is provided to make the selection of duplicate files easier. The options offered are quite extensive. It is possible to keep audio files with the highest bitrate, length or sample rate. Other filters include selection by date and time, file size, group, pattern in name or path and those that are not located in a master path.

Scan time will vary depending on the parameters of the scan, the number of folders and files and the speed of the drives. Duplicate Cleaner is a sophisticated computer software program to find duplicates on a computer system.