Twin files. Search for identical files. To search for audio and video files

Duplicate File Finder is a program for finding duplicates. It finds and removes identical files, thanks to which you free up space on your hard drive. It also works with removable media.

Search and removal of duplicates occurs with the help of a convenient wizard. You need to select disks or individual directories and specify the type of files - you can select all types or individual ones (for example, images or videos). Next, specify the search criteria - skip files larger or smaller than the specified size, enable or disable search by name, date, and attributes. You can also enter the text that is contained in the title (this will help narrow down the search).

After you have set all the parameters, Duplicate File Finder will start searching for duplicates. When completed, the results will appear in the table. Identical files are displayed side by side, so you can compare them by directory, size, and last modified date. Select unwanted files and click "Delete". Files are deleted to the Recycle Bin, own archive (from which they can be restored) or permanently (depending on the settings you have set).

Program features

Finding and deleting identical files.
Search for duplicates by various criteria - directory, file name, size, date of creation, etc.
Displays the total size of files that can be deleted.
Several types of deletion
Interface in Russian.
Supports Windows XP and above.

The Duplicate File Finder program can be downloaded absolutely free.

After a long, constant use of a computer, whatever one may say, large amounts of data accumulate on its disks, i.e. all sorts of photos, videos, films, music, documents, and so on. When data takes up a lot of space, this is normal, for example, I myself have more than 600 GB of necessary data, and someone else has more. But very often duplicate files take up too much space.

Such files may appear when, for example, you transfer them from somewhere to a new location on the disk, forgetting that you already have such files on this disk. And okay, if there are a lot of duplicates of all kinds of documents, but when there are a lot of duplicate photos, music and especially videos, then this, as a rule, will take up a decent amount of disk space from you. I recently checked and found that duplicates eat up about 100 GB from me. on the hard drive, which, in my opinion, is quite a lot :)

In this article, I will show you an easy way to find all the duplicate files in Windows on your drives so that you can easily check them and quickly remove everything you don't need.

In Windows, unfortunately, there are no normal built-in tools for finding duplicate files. There is an option to do this through the PowerShell command line, but this is very inconvenient, especially for beginners it will be difficult. Therefore, it is easier to use third-party programs. One of these is called AllDup. It is completely free, available in Russian, supported by all Windows operating systems and, finally, quite easy to use.

Downloading and installing AllDup

The program can be downloaded for free from the AllDup official website. Below is the link to the download section:

The program is available in two versions: regular installation and portable (Portable). Portable is different in that it does not require installation on a computer, i.e. the program can be run directly from the downloaded folder.

To download, press the button "Server #1", or "Server #2" or "Server #3" (if the first button does not download, spare servers are given) under the desired version of the program.

Direct download links for the latest version (March 2017) of AllDup: standard version , portable version . For fresh versions, always refer to the official website of AllDup!

Installing the program is very simple, it can be said that it consists of successive clicks "Next", no special settings need to be made. Therefore, I will not consider this process.

Learn more about the nuances of installing programs for Windows.

Finding duplicates with AllDup

After installing the program, run it. The main window for search settings will open:

Search setup includes several steps:

These are all the main stages of setting up a search, the rest can be omitted.

Now, to start searching for duplicates, click the "Search" button at the top of the AllDup window:

The search process will start.

The more files in the folders you specify are on your drives, the longer the search will take.

After the search is completed, the program will display the found files with duplicates in the form of a table.

The first thing to do right away is to save the search results, because if you close this window with the results now, then the search will have to be done again. To save, click the button with the image of a floppy disk, or select "Search result" in the top menu and click "Save search result".

Now, even if you turn off the computer, after starting the program again, you will be able to get to the search results again.

You can sort the search results by different parameters by clicking on the headings by a column in the table. The most useful, in my opinion, criterion for sorting is the size of the files. Therefore, if you want the largest files found to be displayed at the top of the table, then click on the "Size (Bytes)" column.

The next thing to adjust for the convenience of viewing the results is the displayed size. Initially, the program shows the file size in bytes, which is not very convenient. It is better to set the display in megabytes or even gigabytes. To do this, click the button marked in the screenshot below (1), then check one of the options (2):

Now I will dwell on how, in fact, to use the search results, how to view and remove unnecessary duplicates ...

The program divides the found duplicates into so-called groups. One group is all found copies of the same file, including the original (it will also be displayed in this group).

To view duplicates of one of the groups, you need to open it by clicking on the arrow. Example:

After expanding a certain group, you can check what kind of file it is by opening it. To do this, simply double-click on the file in the group, or right-click and select "Open File". The file will be opened through a standard Windows program, through which you usually open all files of the selected type.

To delete duplicates, mark them with a checkmark, right-click and select one of the options: delete the file in the Windows recycle bin or permanently delete it.

Accordingly, do not delete all files from the group, because this way you will delete both the duplicates and the original at once! For example, if there are 3 files in a group, then deleting 3 at once will delete both the original and 2 duplicates. In this case, to keep only a single copy of the file, you need to remove 2 files from the group.

Thus, you can check each group separately and remove duplicates. But if a lot of information is found, you can make it easier. Make it so that the program automatically selects all files in each group, except for one (i.e., only duplicates), after which you can get rid of all duplicates at once or run through and double-check whether everything marked is to be deleted.

To automatically mark duplicates, go to the "Select" menu (1) and check one of the options (2), for example, "Select all files except the first file".

As a result, the program will select 2 duplicates in each group, and leave the first file in the list unselected. That is, in this way, you will mark 2 duplicates, and the original will remain unmarked. Or you can use the "Select" menu to try other options that are convenient for you.

After the program has marked the files, you can double-check the selection if necessary. And to quickly delete everything unnecessary or perform some other action, click the button marked in the screenshot below:

In the window that opens, you will see the total volume of the selected files, i.e. how much space the found duplicates occupy and the number of selected files. At the bottom, you need to select an action on the selected files. You can delete files through the recycle bin, delete them permanently (delete files), copy or move files to a folder, and also rename found duplicates. If you are sure that the marked files are duplicates and you no longer need them, then it is easier to delete them, but in any case, the choice is yours.

So, select the desired action (1) and click "OK" (2). There is nothing more to configure here.

After that, the program will perform the action you have chosen on the previously marked files!

That's the whole process :) To exit the search results, just close this window. If you saved the search results, then, if you need this result again, you can get to it through the "Search result" section (1) in the main program window. The results you saved will be displayed in the table (2). To open the desired result, simply double-click on it.

Conclusion

AllDup is a very handy program for finding duplicate files on your computer. There is, in fact, nothing superfluous in the program, it has all the necessary tools, filters and parameters for quickly processing a large volume of duplicates found. Of course, there are similar programs that probably also do their job well. So far I've tried only AllDup and I don't see any point in changing it yet.

Good day...Today in thisIn this article, let's talk about such a good program as Auslogics Duplicate File Finder - This is an absolutely free program for finding and removing duplicate files from your computer. With this program Auslogics Duplicate File Finder you can find duplicate files on your computer and remove them from your computer.

What is a duplicate file

This is a copy of a file located on a computer in a completely different directory, or a disk, folder and has the same name as the original file, weight, and extension. There are duplicate files on almost every personal computer, even if you did not make a copy (duplicate) of your files (for the purpose of any system failures), they will still be on your computer.

Where do duplicate files come from?

For example, you downloaded two albums of songs from the same artist from the Internet, basically the compositions of the songs in the collections are repeated, i.e. the same, the same with photos - in different folders the same photos, over time, these duplicate files on the computer become more and more, respectively, they take up a lot of space on your computer's hard drives or flash drive, this also slows down your PC system.

Therefore, they must be removed periodically. By removing duplicate files, you can significantly increase the free space on your PC's hard drives - . You can download this program by this link. The program is in Russian and has an intuitive interface, so it will not be so difficult to understand the program.

Finding and removing duplicate files using the program - Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

Unpack the archive, click on the installation file of the program, in the program window that opens, click "NEXT"

In the next window, we agree with the license "I accept the agreement" click "NEXT"

Then check the box "Create a desktor icon " create a shortcut on the desktop, click "Next"

Configuring Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

We launch the program and in the window that opens on the left we select the hard drive or external media we need, I recommend that you select all the drives to scan for duplicates.In the center of the window, select the types of files that the program will look for on the PC. There are two search options. "Among files of all types" and "Among only these types of files „.

I recommend choosing the second “Among only these file types” in order to avoid deleting the necessary files that are used by the system. You can also uncheck any section if you do not want to scan it for duplicate files. After choosing the desired settings, click "Next".

In the next window there will be settings "ignore files smaller than 1 MB". You can also select the setting for “ignore files larger than 1 GB.” You can also change the values ​​​​created in the program to your own. I'll tick both boxes. We press "Next".

In the next step, you can choose the settings for finding duplicates, ignoring the name and creation date of the file. By default, the program has a checkmark on the item "ignoring the date of creation of the file."You can select both items, then the program will make a wider scan of the selected hard drives. Select the desired settings and click "Next".

In the next window, choose what to do with the found duplicates. By default, the program is set to delete to the trash, so that you can restore those files that you think were deleted by mistake.In the second paragraph, files will be restored from the already created archive. In the third paragraph, everything is clear, files are permanently deleted from the computer. Select the desired settings and click "Search".

Search for duplicate files

The program will start searching for duplicate files. Scanning hard drives takes place in 3 stages

• The program determines the number of folders
• After that, the program finds those folders that contain the file types that you selected in the search settings, then the date and name of the file creation are checked
• After that, a full check of hard drives and external media is performed.

Upon completion of the search, a window will open with the result of scanning the program for duplicates. On my computer, the program found 71 duplicate files, 635.88 in size. The program window shows the name of the file, its location on the disk, the size of the file, and the date of the last modification.

Next, click on the "Select " at the bottom of the window and select the most appropriate item to remove duplicate files. I chose "Select all duplicates in each group" then click "Delete selected files " and confirm in the window that opens with the OK button.

You can also mark files manually by ticking the selected files and then clicking on the appropriate delete button. All duplicate files that you marked will be deleted to the directory in which you previously specified to delete them (in our case, this is the trash).

Then we close this program. Auslogics Duplicate File Finder designed to search for duplicate files on hard drives and external media. On this I will end this post, I hope it turned out useful.

One of the fastest ways to clog up a hard drive is to store duplicate files. Surely many are not even aware of their existence ... they can have different origins: random copies, many identical downloads, and so on. One thing is for sure - they can really create some problems for you.

A lot of duplicates are created because of the need to keep the file "safe" ... for example, before editing a document, I could make a copy just in case, and then forget it ... or I already have such a document, and I downloaded it again from the mail. Unfortunately, there can be a lot of such duplicates and it turns out that you fill up the free space with useless information.

With these tools, you can calculate and remove duplicate files in minutes and free up a lot of valuable hard drive space. I will only consider free utilities, so you have nothing to lose!

Search for duplicate files. Overview of the best tools

This utility is probably my favorite tool for finding and removing duplicates, because it has a lot of great features: It is cross-platform, completely free, and also has an advanced labeling and selection algorithm.

What are non-clear duplicates? Several identical files may have different names. For example, you may have two files on your computer: example-file.avi and example file(1).avi- the utility understands this very well and can also mark them as a duplicate.

By the way, the utility also has other editions: Music Edition and Picture Edition, optimized for finding duplicates in graphic and audio files - even if they are recorded in different formats. This is very important, because it is audio and graphic files that most often become duplicates.

Duplicate Files Finder is an application that searches for duplicate files (which have the same content but not necessarily the same name) and allows the user to delete unnecessary files.

Duplicate Files Finder can only find exact duplicates. The principle of its work is to enumerate all the files on the computer by size and compare them by content. On the one hand, this is logical, but it is quite sad for video and graphics. (after all, depending on the compression algorithm, they can have a different size), but for everything else the program is just great.

Thanks to this comparison algorithm, Duplicate Files Finder is much faster than its competitors.

AllDup is a powerful duplicate search tool created by one person, Michael Thummerer. The utility has a number of settings for searching for duplicates from: file name, extension and data type, date of creation and modification, and many more different parameters.

AllDup has many useful features and great flexibility in terms of finding duplicates, but you have to pay for the functionality. The interface here is not at all friendly and this can drive an insecure user into a dead end. However, if you can figure out the program, then this application will be a good tool for finding duplicate files.

Duplicate Cleaner requires fine manual settings before you can use the functionality of this program to one hundred percent.

With manual configuration, you can choose in which folder you want to find duplicates, and not scan the entire computer, as some other programs offer us. As a result, you can delete these duplicates, move them all to a separate folder, or create shortcuts to the only necessary file instead. In general, the impressions are positive - so I recommend it.

If you are a Windows user and want to get rid of endless copies of images, then SimilarImages will be more than ever for you. Images are, in my opinion, the most common source of duplicate content on a computer. For example, I know that I have a bunch of duplicate photos in different folders ... and given their number, I have no desire to deal with them manually.

The program has flexible settings and can detect inaccurate duplicates - this is especially true due to the presence of artifacts that appeared during the image compression process.

The great thing about SimilarImages is that it shows you two images when it finds duplicates, and you can decide whether to keep them or remove the duplicate.

Conclusion

Just like in real life, when unwanted junk creates a terrible mess in your home, duplicate files can accumulate on your hard drive. Such files are very difficult to delete, because you forgot about it, and ordinary system cleaners will not find them - as they are legally found on the hard drive.

Use the programs that I have listed for you to find duplicate files to free up space on your hard drive. If you know about other utilities - share with us in the comments.

In contact with

The file garbage accumulated during the operation of the computer is usually not only unnecessary or temporary files for the user. A separate category is duplicate files that are identical in content, but are stored in different folders or on different disks of the computer.

These can be, for example, documents saved repeatedly, repeated or similar photographs, the same musical compositions that you have downloaded from the Internet and saved in different folders or under different names. It is important to understand that duplicates are essentially two versions of the same photo that have different resolutions. Or the same song by the same artist, but recorded at different concerts. Or two versions of the same musical composition, but recorded in different audio formats.

An example of duplicate files can also be considered two versions of a movie saved with different quality or, again, in different video formats. Of course, manually detecting such duplicates is quite difficult, so we will call on special programs that search for duplicate files to help. As you probably already understood from the previous paragraph, duplicates of each file type (pictures, music, videos, documents) have their own characteristics.

The algorithms for searching for duplicates of all types of files differ significantly from each other, therefore, as a rule, different programs are engaged in the search for duplicate files of different types. Let's consider some of them. In addition, it is important not only to detect duplicates, but also to choose the latest version of the document or the highest quality video or audio file. We will look at each type of file separately, and also provide a list of popular programs for working with duplicates.

Duplicate Image Search

The most striking example of duplicate pictures can be the same or very similar photos. Many modern cameras allow you to shoot in continuous mode, when pictures are taken at very short intervals - from a few fractions of a second to several seconds. In this case, the resulting images differ from each other very slightly. As practice shows, there is no real need to store similar photos, it is enough to choose one or two successful shots from the series, and delete the rest.

Another case where duplicate image files may appear is when backing up photos on a hard drive, selecting pictures for a presentation, in which they are copied to another folder. In general, the user often creates copies of images himself, and then forgets to delete them. However, the reasons for the appearance of duplicate images can be very different. Our task is to get rid of such duplicates and free up space on your hard drive. Among the most common programs designed to search for duplicate images on a computer are the following.

• SWMole Clone Remover. Website address: http://www.clone-remover.com/ . The program is paid. It can search not only for duplicate images (including similar drawings, not just exact copies), but also copies of music files. In the unregistered version, the user has the ability to delete no more than 20 files. Finds copies of images in pairs, even if there are more than two similar images on the disk. Has a Russian-language interface.
• Image Comparer. Website: http://www.bolidesoft.com/eng/imagecomparer.html The program is shareware, has a trial period of 30 days. A multilingual user interface is supported, among the languages ​​there is Russian. It is possible to search for duplicate images both within the same folder and between multiple folders. The interface of the program is somewhat complicated for a novice user, but it is possible to use a step-by-step wizard mode that will help you find and remove duplicate image files.
• picasa. The official page of the program: https://picasa.google.com. The program itself includes many different tools for working with photos. Including the program has a function to search for duplicate images. To use this feature, select Tools>>Experimental Features>>Show Duplicate Files from the main menu of the program. Let's immediately pay attention to the fact that the program looks for exactly repeating image files, that is, absolutely identical pictures. But it finds them regardless of location and with little or no user intervention. The program is absolutely free and has a Russian-language interface. You can also use Picasa to process images, apply various filters to them, find people's faces, mark shooting locations, and do many other useful things.
• Similar Image Finder. Program website: http://www.crown-s-soft.com/en/sifinder.htm . The program is shareware. Within 30 days you can use it without buying, while there is a limit on the number of duplicate files found. The program interface is in English. It is possible to adjust the depth of "similarity" of photos, as well as set preferences for found duplicates: for example, you can tell the program to automatically delete the oldest of the duplicate files, which has less color or a smaller size. The program has a wizard for finding duplicates, which allows you to specify the criteria for comparing image files in a step-by-step mode.

Search for duplicate music files

Just like images, music files can sometimes take up a lot of disk space, and in some cases it can be difficult to manually find the same or similar music compositions. Specialized applications that automate this process will come to the rescue. Let's talk about some of the most popular ones.

• audio comparer. You can download the program on the website: http://audiocomparer.com/rus/. The application is shareware. It can be used for 30 days without registration. The analysis of musical compositions is based on a comparison of the names of performers and song titles. This data is taken from the file name and internal service information, the so-called ID3 tags. It is possible to specify the similarity threshold for names at which compositions will be considered the same. The application allows you to compare files both within a single directory on a computer disk, and between several directories. The interface of the program is somewhat complicated for a novice user, but this is compensated by the presence of a step-by-step wizard that facilitates the process of finding duplicates.
• Music Duplicate Remover. Web site: http://www.maniactools.com/ . The key difference between this application and analogues is the ability to search for duplicates by sound. This function allows you to find duplicates even among those files that are incorrectly named. The program is shareware and allows an unregistered user to work for 30 days. It has a simple user interface in Russian.
• SWMole Clone Remover. As already mentioned, this application can search not only for duplicate images, but also for repeating musical compositions. Program website address: http://www.clone-remover.com/ . The program interface is complicated, but thanks to the support of the Russian language, it is easy to figure it out on your own. The application can search for duplicate music files only by file name and ID3 tags, without taking into account the sound. Using one of the listed programs or all of them at once, you can free up a lot of useful disk space on your computer.

Search for duplicate video files

The fight against duplicate video files has its own characteristics compared to the search for duplicate pictures or music. Due to the large size of video files, there are usually not as many of them on computer disks as music or images. In addition, the appearance of duplicate films or videos is not as common as the "cloning" of photos or songs. But deleting even one clone of a video file will help free up a significant amount of disk space. In addition, the algorithm for comparing video streams is much more complicated than drawings or even the sound of music. For this reason, there are not many programs designed to find duplicate video files. Let's dwell on some of them.

• Duplicate Video Search. Web address: http://duplicatevideosearch.com/rus/ . The program is shareware - with a trial period of 30 days. It has an English-language interface, which, however, is not overloaded with unnecessary elements, and therefore is quite understandable. The user must specify in which folders to search for video duplicates. The application can compare the content of video files in ten different formats. It is possible to specify the depth of comparison.
• Teemoon Video Matching. Program home page: http://teemoon.name/videoid/Default.html . Unlike its "brothers", this application is free. Working with the program involves two stages. The first is indexing, which is carried out on the Indexing tab. This process creates index files for each video file in the specified folder. The process is lengthy, but it only needs to be done once, then the existing index files will be used when comparing the files. The second stage is the comparison, which is carried out on the Matching tab. The disadvantages of the program include the lack of support for the Russian language and the non-obvious algorithm of work.
• Video Comparer. Program website: http://www.video-comparer.com/. The application has paid and free versions. Free for home use. The interface of the program is quite simple. The user only needs to specify the folders in which to search for duplicate files and click the button to start the comparison process. The user interface is in English.

If you are a cinephile and keep a large collection of different films on your computer or are engaged in video editing and have a lot of video clips on your hard drive, then you should take an "inventory" of the video archive. Perhaps you will find hidden reserves of your computer.

Search for other duplicates

As you probably already understood, there is no universal program that allows you to get rid of all duplicate files in one fell swoop - each type of data requires its own tool. However, if we leave aside complex algorithms for comparing images and sounds, and limit ourselves to simply comparing the name, size, and date of a file, then you can find many duplicates among those file types that we have not mentioned here yet. These can be documents, files of other formats that take up disk space in vain. To find such duplicates, you can often do without specialized programs. For example, if you use some popular file manager, you can use its tools to find and remove duplicate files. Among the file managers that have the function of searching for duplicate files are:

• FAR Manager;
• FreeCommander;
• Total Commander.

If you are not used to using file managers, then you should not install them on your computer just for the sake of finding duplicates. There are specialized applications for this task:

• CloneSpy - http://www.clonespy.com/;
• DupKiller - http://dupkiller.com/index_ru.html;
• Duplicate Cleaner - http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/duplicatecleaner. html;
• Free Duplicate File Finder - http://www.ashisoft.com/;
• NoClone 2014 Desktop - http://noclone.net/

These and many other paid and free applications for every taste will help you get rid of duplicate files on your hard drives.