1. Free Duplicate File Remover Mac
2. Duplicate File Remover Windows 10
3. Freeware Duplicate File Remover
4. Free Duplicate File Remover Pc

Wise duplicate finder is the best duplicate file finder and remover tool that can quickly scan all the duplicate files from the system and helps in cleaning up the disk space. It can easily detect duplicate documents, videos, photos, movies, etc. Download and start Umate Mac Cleaner. Select 'Delete Duplicate Files' tab on the left side. Enter the directory to scan and then click on the 'Scan' button. After scanning, the app will show you both original files and their duplicates, and automatically tick off duplicate ones for quick deletion. CloneSpy is a Free Duplicate File CleanUp Tool for Windows. CloneSpy can help you free up hard drive space by detecting and removing duplicate files. Duplicate files have exactly the same contents regardless of their name, date, time and location. Also, CloneSpy is able to find files that are not exactly identical, but have the same file name. After testing tens of tools for duplicate file removal, we think Gemini 2 deserves the top position. Gemini 2 is one of the most popular duplicate file finders and removers for Mac. Developed by MacPaw, the tool allows you to accurately scan your Mac for duplicate files and remove them. It’s very easy to use and is regularly updated with. Top 10 Duplicate File Finders for Mac. Nektony - Fast scanning algorithm. Disk Drill - A powerful tool to clear the space. Duplicate File Finder Remover - Intuitive user interface. MacClean - Doesn’t overload your PC. Duplicate Files Fixer - Professional software for cleaning duplicate files.

The bad news is that duplicate files are eating up space on your Mac potentially causing your Mac to slow down and perform poorly. The good news is that there is an easy way to get rid of duplicate files with just a couple of clicks. The easy way is to use the best duplicate file finder for Mac.

There are a number of apps to find and delete the duplicate photos, videos, music files, documents and other types of duplicate files on a Mac. They vary in performance, ease of use and more. In this article, you will find a list of them along with a review for each.

What makes a reliable duplicate file finder for Mac?

Capability of identifying duplicate files

A duplicate file finder is an app designed to detect duplicate files. Such apps use particular algorithms to compare files and identify the duplicates. Different apps may use different algorithms. For example, the algorithm PhotoSweeper uses can only handle images, resulting in its inability to find other types of duplicates. Easy Duplicate Finder uses SHA-256, which is a bit slow. Cisdem Duplicate Finder uses a combination of algorithms, leading to high performance in the detection of various types of duplicate files.

Safe support for Photos and iTunes (now Music)

Unlike on Windows where photos and music files are stored in normal folders, the photos and songs on your Mac are typically stored in Photos Library (managed via Photos app) and iTunes Media (managed via iTunes app) respectively. The fact is that many duplicate file finders for Mac will consider Photos Library and iTunes Media normal folders when searching for duplicates in the two places. As a result, they will damage your library or cause the loss of files or related data. To safely delete these duplicates, you need to use an app designed for Photos and iTunes.

There are other criteria to consider. The two ones above are the most important.

The best duplicate file finders for Mac

#1 Cisdem Duplicate Finder

Compatibility: macOS 10.10 or later, including Big Sur

Cisdem Duplicate Finder is the best of its kind due to its high performance, safety, ease of use, etc.

Thanks to the advanced algorithms it uses, the app can quickly identify true duplicate files by content and find duplicate photos, audios, videos, Word documents, PDFs, presentations, archives and other types of duplicate files on your Mac and external storage devices (e.g., external hard drives, SD cards and more). It also finds near-duplicate photos, which is a plus for making the app a great duplicate photo finder for Mac.

Designed for Photos and iTunes, Cisdem Duplicate Finder will scan your Photos Library or iTunes Media, display the found duplicates for you to view, and remove the unwanted duplicates from within the Photos app or iTunes app with your permission, just like a human would when removing photos or songs. Your Photos Library and iTunes Media will be safe and unaffected except being duplicate-free.

Once the app finishes scanning Photos, iTunes or Mac folders for duplicate files, it will display the detected duplicates in its results window for you to easily view and preview. What’s more, its smart Auto-Select feature will automatically select duplicates for you to mass delete with a single click. Click the Delete button, and now all dupes are gone! If not satisfied with auto-selection, you can manually select or use the selection rules provided.

Pros

1. Quickly find all types of duplicate files on Mac based on content
2. Also find near-duplicate images
3. Support Mac and external storage devices
4. Safely remove duplicates from Photos, iPhoto, Music and iTunes
5. Come with 3 preview modes, including a side-by-side mode
6. Provide a smart Auto-Select feature and up to 8 selection rules
7. Offer 3 deletion methods, including Move to Trash
8. Support Apple silicon

#2 Gemini 2

Compatibility: macOS 10.10 or later

In addition to the best duplicate file finder for Mac, there are other great apps available to help rid your Mac of duplicate files. Gemini 2 is one of them. People are often impressed by how good looking the app is. But a beautiful interface can only be the cherry on top. What’s important is the ability to find duplicate files on a Mac.

The app supports finding the double files in normal folders, iTunes and Photos and is capable of detecting duplicate photos, duplicate audios, duplicate documents and some other types of duplicates. It does a good job of deleting duplicate files in folders even the large ones. But it occasionally fails to work when scanning a big Photos Library. In such a case, try to re-scan.

In February 2021, Gemini 2 introduced the Duplicates Monitor feature aiming to better help users get rid of duplicate files by notifying users when new duplicates appear. The feature does what it’s designed for. But it uses lots of CPU and may slow down your Mac.

Pros

1. Comes with a beautiful interface
2. Scan your Mac for various types of duplicate files
3. Support Photos and iTunes
4. Let users directly preview files within the app
5. Provide an innovative Duplicates Monitor feature

Cons

1. Incompatible with macOS 10.9 or earlier
2. Expensive

#3 Tidy Up 5

Compatibility: macOS 10.12 or later

Designed by Hyperbolic for “pro users” (as advertised), Tidy Up 5 is a good duplicate file finder for Mac for experienced users. Inexperienced users may find its interface overwhelming and confusing.

Supporting all popular file types such as images, Tidy Up 5 can detect and delete the duplicate files in Mac’s folders and Photos. Although the app offers an option to scan iTunes for duplicate items, it does a poor job. In the test, it failed to find any duplicates, which do exist, in my iTunes.

The app comes with two modes: Simple mode and Advanced mode. New users can start with the simple one. Both modes offer an array of scan options and criteria. Each scan for duplicates requires (at least) a little configuration. Compared to the other best Mac duplicate file finders talked about above, this one is less easy to use.

Pros

1. Search for a variety types of duplicate files on Mac
2. Find and delete duplicates in Apple Photos on Mac
3. Provide 2 modes for users to choose from
4. Highly customizable
5. Support hard links

Cons

1. Don’t support macOS 10.11 or earlier
2. Not good at finding duplicates in iTunes
3. Not that user-friendly

#4 Easy Duplicate Finder for Mac

Compatibility: macOS 10.6 or later

Easy Duplicate Finder is available for both macOS and Windows. Highly compatible, it works well on a Mac running Big Sur, Catalina, Mojave or High Sierra or even an earlier version.

Its wizard-style interface is simple to navigate and use, guiding users through the whole process of the identification and removal of duplicate files, which is especially helpful for novice users.

This piece of file deduplication software can scan your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air or iMac, etc. for duplicate songs, duplicate photos and more. When the scan is complete, it will give you two options: using Auto Remove to immediately eliminate duplicates or using Manual Review to view duplicates and then remove the unwanted ones. The latter allows you to examine the files you are handling and deleting and is more reliable.

The app excels at looking for the duplicates in iTunes and normal folders. However, when searching for duplicate photos in Mac Photos app, it will return no results or false positives. If you allow it to deduplicate, your Photos Library will get damaged.

Pros

1. Capable of detecting common types of file duplicates
2. Support iTunes
3. Provide an Auto Remove feature for quick duplicate removal
4. Very user-friendly interface

Cons

1. Relatively slow scan
2. Poor support for Mac’s Photos
3. A bit expensive

#5 Duplicate Detective

Compatibility: macOS 10.7 or later

This Mac duplicate file finder and remover looks less sophisticated due to its unpolished interface. It actually does a fair job of scanning for and removing duplicate files on Mac.

You can use it to scan folders and Photos. However, it can’t identify all the duplicates in a given folder or library. Some dupes will be missing. And also, it can’t provide consistent performance. If you want to clean up duplicates in iTunes, this app won’t help. In the test, the duplicate songs it found didn’t even exist in my iTunes.

Pros

1. Support all common file types
2. Can find the duplicates in Photos on Mac
3. Offer an option to create an alias when deleting duplicates
4. Easy to use
5. Lightweight

Cons

1. Incapable of finding all duplicate files in a location
2. Can’t work well with iTunes

#6 Duplicate Sweeper for Mac

Compatibility: macOS 10.8 or later

Duplicate Sweeper is another lightweight macOS duplicate file finder and deleter. The app’s minimal interface is easy to use and navigate. Its welcome screen provides users with brief usage instructions. Even someone who is completely inexperienced can easily use it.

The app can only delete duplicate files in the folders on a Mac. In other words, you can’t use it to weed out the duplicates in your Photos or iTunes. Therefore, it may not be desirable for Mac users. But it can be a choice to consider if the duplicate files on your Mac do reside in folders.

Pros

1. Able to look for photo duplicates and other common types of duplicates
2. Lightweight
3. Ease-to-use interface

Cons

1. Can’t identify the duplicates in iTunes and Photos
2. Sometime fail to detect all dupes
3. Limited customization

#7 dupeGuru for Mac (free)

Compatibility: macOS 10.12 or later

There are also free Mac apps available for the removal of duplicate files. What is the best free duplicate file finder for Mac? dupeGuru may be the answer.

dupeGuru is free to use and open source. There is some sort of maintenance, but the app hasn’t been properly updated for years. Therefore, there can be compatibility issues with newer macOS versions.

The freeware app comes with three modes: Standard, Music and Picture, allowing you to look for and delete duplicate pictures, duplicate music files and some others in folders on Mac. It’s not designed for Apple Photos and iTunes. Even though it allows you to scan Photos Library, its deduplication algorithm will damage your library and cause data loss.

Pros

1. Completely free to use
2. Open source
3. Offer 3 modes to handle different types of duplicate files
4. Fairly configurable
5. Can find certain visually similar pictures

Cons

1. Possible compatibility issues
2. No support for Photos and iTunes
3. Can’t find all dupes in the folder it scans

Free Duplicate File Remover Mac

#8 Disk Drill for Mac (free)

Compatibility: macOS 10.12 or later

Disk Drill is actually a data recovery app, but it offers a feature called Find Duplicates. The feature is available in the free and paid versions of Disk Drill, which makes the app available as a free duplicate file finder.

You can find the feature in the sidebar under the Extra tools section. Like dupeGuru, this app can scan only folders for duplicates. To perform a scan, you need to add a folder and click the Start Scan button. There is no instant preview of duplicate files. To preview a duplicate, you need to click the eye icon next to it, which can cause inconvenience when it comes to image duplicates.

Pros

1. Free to use
2. Easy-to-understand interface
3. Scan Mac folders for file duplicates

Cons

1. Incapable of detecting all duplicate files
2. Can’t scan Photos and iTunes
3. Inconvenient preview

How to find and remove duplicate files on Mac with a duplicate file finder

I hope the list and reviews above are useful and helps you do a comparison so as to pick the app you need. This part will show you how duplicate removal software typically works.

1. Download and install the software. Open it.

2. Click the plus icon + to add a folder or drive. Click Scan.

3. Once it finishes scanning for duplicate files, you can view and preview the duplicates. It lets you view by file type.

4. Duplicates are already automatically selected for mass removal.

If not happy with auto-selection, you can select by hand. Or, highlight all items under the All tab with Command-A and then apply a desired selection rule.

5. Click Delete.

6. Click Yes to confirm the deletion. Now the unwanted duplicate files on your Mac are removed.

If you want to remove duplicates from Mac Photos app or iTunes app, it will require a couple of additional steps. Please see the official user guide for details.

By the way, you can also manually eliminate the file duplicates in Mac folders by using Finder’s Find function, which can be a time-consuming and tedious process. Alternatively, it’s possible to find duplicate files on Mac using Terminal, the terminal emulator coming with macOS. But stay away from Terminal if you don’t have some command line knowledge.

Conclusion

Removing duplicate files can help free up storage space, possibly making your Mac run faster. Also, it’s easier to manage files on a duplicate-free computer. The best duplicate file finder for Mac can help you effortlessly, effectively and safely root out duplicates from your Mac, no matter where they reside and how deep they hide. In addition, there are other great apps to consider.

Which duplicate file finder for Mac you are using?

Looking for the best free duplicate file finder? Here’s a list of the best free apps to find and remove duplicate files.

Generally, there are two types of duplicate file finders. Some of them are comprehensive, with support for all file types such as images, videos and documents. Some are specialized in detecting and deleting only one type of duplicate files, say, duplicate photos. This article will talk about both types and cover OS versions such as Windows 10, Windows 7, macOS 11 Big Sur, macOS 10.15 Catalina, macOS 10.14 Mojave, etc.

The Best Duplicate File Finder for Mac

• Find duplicate photos, music files, videos, documents, archives, etc.
• Find similar images as well
• Identify true duplicate files based on content
• Remove duplicates from Photos, iPhoto, Music and iTunes
• Support Mac’s internal drive, external hard drive, SD card and more
• Can also be used for Amazon Photos, Google Drive, etc.
• Provide 3 preview modes, allowing side-by-side image preview
• Automatically select duplicate files for you to mass delete with 1 click
• Also offer up to 8 selection rules
• Offer 3 removal options: Move to Trash, Move to Folder and Delete Permanently
• Safe and easy to use
• Compatible with macOS 10.10 or later

Free Download

The best free duplicate file finder 2020 and 2021

Duplicate File Remover Windows 10

#1 Auslogics Duplicate File Finder | Windows

Compatibility: Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7

License: Freeware

Rating: 4.5

Latest version: 9.0.0.4, released on 02/11/2021

Auslogics Duplicate File Finder is completely free to use. It can find all types of duplicate files such as duplicate images, duplicate videos and duplicate songs. Using intelligent algorithms, it identifies duplicate files by comparing content.

It lets users have control over the process of looking for and removing duplicate files on Windows PC. It offers two scan modes: “Look for all files types” and “Look for these file types only”. Users can also specify file size for scan and choose how this tool removes duplicate files. One can move the unwanted duplicate files to Recycle Bin or the tool’s Rescue Center or delete them permanently.

This Windows duplicate file finder for excels at detecting duplicate files and allows lots of customization. But it’s not flawless. Its preview function is not that useful. Sometimes you need to view files with their associated apps. Also, it is bundled with unwanted extra software. To avoid them, click “Decline” during the installation. Here’s a full review of Auslogics Duplicate File Finder for Windows.

Pros

Freeware Duplicate File Remover

1. Totally free to use
2. Easy to use with an intuitive, user-friendly interface
3. Fast scanning
4. Support various file types such as photos and music
5. Multiple removal methods
6. Multiple supported languages
7. Also find duplicate files on external storage devices such as USB flash drive
8. Let you effortlessly restore deleted duplicates thanks to its Rescue Center feature

Cons

1. Poor preview performance
2. Installer bundled with unwanted apps

If you are looking for a useful and powerful duplicate filer finder for Windows with a great preview feature, you can try the free trial of Easy Duplicate Finder.

#2 Duplicate Cleaner Free | Windows

Compatibility: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7 and Windows Vista

License: Free and Pro

Rating: 4.5

Free Duplicate File Remover Pc

Latest version: 4.1.4, released on 01/30/2020

Duplicate Cleaner Free supports a variety of file types such as music, images, and documents. Its powerful scan engine ensures high scan speed and the ability to compare files by content. The flexible search settings let you decide how this tool looks for and deletes duplicates.

There are also useful minor features such as scan results export and folder exclusion.

This top-rated free app has three types of scanning mode: “Regular Mode”, “Image Mode” and “Audio Mode”. The latter two modes are available only in the pro edition. The free Regular mode allows you to find duplicates by content, or file attributes, or a combination of them.

Even the free edition of this Windows duplicate file finder provides enough setting options. New users may feel overwhelmed by the array of search criteria and options. Don’t worry. Each feature or option comes with a Help button. Click it to display the help information.

If you are looking for a free duplicate photo finder, you will be pleased to find out that it supports all popular image formats (like PNG, JPEG, TIFF, etc.) and popular RAW image formats (like CR2, RW2, SR2, etc.). It can compare images by exact content, tags and even geographical distance.

The pro edition is called Duplicate Cleaner Pro. The developer releases updates for both editions several times a year to fix bugs or bring new features.

Pros

1. Support multiple file types and formats including RAW images
2. Enough useful features and options even in the free version
3. Various options for finding and removing duplicate files
4. Good at finding duplicate and similar images
5. High scan speed
6. Handy keyboard shortcuts
7. Offer useful minor features such as scan results export and folder exclusion

Cons

1. Not very user friendly to new users
2. Installer comes with components which you may not want

Also Read:8 Best Duplicate File Finders for Mac of 2021: Paid and Free

#3 dupeGuru | Windows, Mac & Linux

Compatibility: macOS 10.12 or later, Windows, Linux

License: Freeware

Rating: 4.5

Latest version: 4.1.1 (for Windows), released on 03/22/2021 Crack para o eberick.

dupeGuru is probably one of the oldest duplicate file finders. The app came out in 2004. It used to be a paid app and has been free and open-source since 2010. It offers three modes. The Standard mode supports all common file types. The Music mode only scans for duplicate music files such as duplicate MP3 files. The Picture mode is specialized in looking for duplicate photos.

It lets you add one or multiple folders to scan for duplicate files. When the scan is done, the dupeGuru Results window will open. There, all detected duplicate files will be listed. You can easily sort them by file kind, filename and size.

To preview an image or media file within the app, highlight a file and click the eye icon in the toolbar. Check the boxes next to the unwanted duplicate files. From the top menu bar, select Actions > Send Marked to Trash. These duplicates will be moved to Trash. You can also choose to move them to a specific folder of your choice.

The best free duplicate file finder for Mac offers a rich set of features and options to help basic and advanced users to deal with duplicate files and customize the process.

Pros

1. Free to use and open-source
2. Support all popular file types and formats
3. Offer three modes to handle different file types
4. Provide multiple scan types
5. Allow you to scan one or more folders at once
6. Can ignore small files to improve scanning efficiency
7. Enable you to save scan results for later use
8. Let you preview image, audio and videos files
9. Offer multiple ways to remove duplicate files
10. Highly flexible and customizable

Cons

1. Crash when scanning an entire drive
2. Limitedly useful preview feature
3. No support for Mac Photos app

#4 Ashisoft Free Duplicate File Finder | Windows

Compatibility: Windows 10, Windows 8/8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, both 32 and 64 bit

License: Free and Pro

Latest version: 8.1.0.1

Rating: 4.0

Ashisoft Duplicate File Finder can compare files byte by byte, so it can find true duplicate files regardless of filename. It has a free edition and a pro edition. Both allow you to look for various types of duplicates such as duplicate music files, pictures and videos.

The interface is simple and easy to understand even for new users. It displays options and actions for users to take. You can choose to identify duplicates by byte-by-byte comparison, the SHA-1 algorithm or file properties. It provides multiple search filters, duplicates marking options and removal options. You can also exclude folders for scanning, which is a safety feature to prevent accidental delete. Its ability to find duplicate music files is also worth mentioning. This duplicate file finder for Windows 10 (and other versions) can measure and identify similarities between songs by content or by ID tags like title, album and artist. If you choose to find duplicate music by content, the app will ignore these tags and only focus on file content.

The free version only provides basic features and options, which may be enough in many cases. To have access to advanced features (such as support for Google Drives), you need to upgrade to the pro edition. Its ability to find duplicate files is slightly lower than that of some similar tools such as Auslogics Duplicate File Finder.

Pros

1. User-friendly interface
2. Multiple supported file types
3. Can identify duplicates by content
4. Multiple options for scanning, searching, filtering, etc.
5. Excels at finding duplicate music files

#5 Fast Duplicate File Finder | Windows

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista, XP, NT, 2000, 2003, all Windows Server operating systems

License: Free and Pro

Rating: 4.0

Latest Version: 5.9.0.1

Fast Duplicate File Finder is fast and powerful when it comes to searching duplicate files in folders and subfolders on PC. It is particularly useful if you have duplicate files with different names. This tool has many nice-to-have features, such as options to manage duplicates, the ability to preview files before deleting, and the support for external devices such as USB drives, external hard drives and SD cards.

Its Pro edition allows you to find similar files, export scan results and exclude folders for scan. If the free version can’t satisfy what you need, you can pay $39.95 to buy the Pro version. The comparison table below will show you the differences between the free and professional editions.

Pros

1. Look for duplicates by content or file properties
2. Can find duplicate images, documents, and media files
3. Can also find similar files (Pro edition only)
4. Allow users to preview files
5. 2 removal options
6. Useful features such as auto-check and renaming files

Cons

1. No filtering options in the free version
2. Relatively slow scanning

#6 Duplicate Manager | Mac

Compatibility: Compatibility: macOS 10.7 or later, including macOS 11 Big Sur

License: Free and Pro

Rating: 4.0

Latest version: 1.3.9, released on 02/05/2021

I recommended Duplicate Finder & Remover for Mac users. It is not officially available now, so I replace it with another great free Mac duplicate file finder called Duplicate Manager.

Thanks to its support for all file types, this app can locate all types of duplicate files such as songs, photos, movies, videos and documents. It offers multiple comparison modes. The default mode is Checksum, which scans your computer for exact duplicates.

With the convenient preview feature, it’s easy to preview and examine the found duplicate files. You need to select duplicates to delete. Clicking the Auto Select button will automatically select the duplicate for deletion, but it only applies to one group of duplicates at a time. You need to upgrade to the Pro edition to be able to apply to all.

This free app has the essential features that duplicate file finder software should have. It does a good job of remove duplicate files from Mac’s folders. When it comes to duplicates in Mac’s Photos app, it won’t help. For this task, you need a duplicate file finder safely designed for Mac’s Photos.

Pros

1. Free to use
2. Find all types of duplicate files
3. Come with a simple and straightforward interface
4. Offer different modes to compare files and identify duplicates
5. Useful preview feature
6. 2 ways to remove duplicates: moving to Trash or delete instantly
7. Highly customizable

Cons

1. Can’t mass delete duplicates
2. No support for Photos

#7 Anti-Twin | Windows

Compatibility: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP

License: Freeware, for personal-use only

Rating: 4.0

Latest Version: 1.8d (2010)

This portable free duplicate file finder is lightweight and useful, allowing you to find duplicate files on Windows PC by file content or by filename. Users can accurately find both identical and similar images, thanks to its ability to do pixel-based image comparison.

There are two comparison methods: Compare names and Compare content. The latter is recommended, but note that scanning for duplicates by content will take a longer time. With both methods, you can adjust the matching level. You can directly delete the unwanted duplicate copies or send them to the recycle bin.

One of the great things is that it can also find duplicate files in shared network folders, which requires decent network connection. This free duplicate file remover does allow you to preview images, but it will open a separate window, which can be inconvenient.

Pros

1. Portable
2. Supports local hard drive, external devices and network folders
3. Supports common file types and formats
4. Can find identical or similar files with adjustable matching levels
5. Can compare files by content or by filename
6. 2 removal options

Cons

1. Limited search filters
2. Relatively low scan speed

The best free duplicate photo finder Windows 10

Awesome Duplicate Photo Finder

Compatibility: Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, XP, 2000, 2003 Server

License: Freeware

Rating: 5

Latest version: 1.2, released on 04/09/2021

It’s a free yet powerful software program designed for photo deduplication. The freeware offers the following main benefits.

• Simple, easy-to-understand interface
• Lightweight with a download size of only 1.2 MB
• Detect both exact duplicate photos and similar ones
• Support 5 common image formats like PNG, JPG and TIFF
• Support CR2 - Canon RAW files
• Allow you to scan multiple folders at once
• Work with internal and external hard drives, memory card, and more

This excellent free duplicate photo finder has been around for more than 10 years and has gone through four upgrades. Version 1.2 added support for CR2 RAW images. It contains no adware or malware and is safe to download and use.

It has all the basic functions that a duplicate photo cleaner should have. The support for all popular image types makes it useful in most cases. One of the great things is its ability to find the resized pictures. Resized photos are the same in photo content but different in size. With this app, you can easily find them out and quickly remove the unwanted versions.

If your purpose is to get rid of relatively large images to free up space, you can exclude small image files from scan so as to reduce scan time. There is an option allowing you to do the exclusion. If you want to eliminate dupes and better manage your photo collection, it’s recommended to scan all images in the target folder or drive.

Guide and tips: How to use free duplicate file finder software

Duplicate file finders may vary in performance, usability, capabilities and supported platforms, but they are likely to work in a similar way. Here we will take the best free duplicate file finder for Windows as an example and show you how to use such software to get rid of duplicates on Windows and free up hard drive space.

Step 1. Add folders to scan. Add folders, subfolders or drives (partitions) to scan for duplicates files.

Step 2. Set scan and removal preferences. It lets you find duplicates of all file types or of only certain file type(s) such as images and audios. Specify file size range if needed. Choose a preferred removal option. Click the Search button.

Step 3. Preview. Previewing allows you to better known the files you are dealing with. If the preview feature is not that useful, you can open and view files with associated apps. You can also sort groups of duplicates by name, type and size.

Step 4. Delete. There are multiple selection options available. Click the dropdown list to choose one. Click Delete Selected Files to remove the unwanted copies in the way you prefer.

Tips

These tips are applicable regardless of the duplicate file finder or operating system you use.

• Back up your files first It’s not necessary but is a good practice before you perform any file cleanup actions. You can make a backup on a different drive or use cloud storage.
• Exclude important folders If you want to scan your entire hard drive for duplicate files, it’s recommended to exclude important folders and system files for scanning.
• Make the most of customizable options All good duplicate file finders have multiple filter and action options. They can help improve efficiency and avoid file deletion by mistake.
• Remove files in safe manner Choose to move unwanted duplicates to the Recycle Bin (or Trash) or a rescue center (if available). This way you can easily recover files that have been erased by mistake. In addition, if you are a Mac user and want to get rid of the duplicates in Photos, make sure you use software safely compatible with Photos.

Conclusion

The duplicate file finder freeware is generally not as good as the paid counterpart in terms of capacities and performance, but sometimes they are already useful enough. Some of the apps on our list of the best free duplicate file finder software are freeware. Some also have paid editions which have more advanced features. There are also a few decent open-source apps. However, they haven't been updated for years. Therefore, they are not included in this list. If you are also a Mac user or plan to switch to Mac, you can use the best duplicate file finder for Mac for duplicate files cleanup.