The free Fast Duplicate File Finder not only allows you to find duplicate files, but it also lets you delete duplicate files easily.
Latest posts by Michael Pietroforte (see all)

What is the first thing you do if a user tells you that he reached the quota on the file server?

A.  Assign more space.

B.  Tell the user to delete all his games and movies.

C.  Find duplicate files in his home folder.

If your answer is A or B, you can now head to your well-deserved Easter weekend and search for eggs instead of files. If your answer is C, you need to stay a little longer.

Findduplicate files - Fast Duplicate File Finder

I have seen user folders with several copies of the whole user profile. When questioned, the user answered that he heard that backups are important. So before you buy a new hard disk for your file server, you might want to check how many duplicate files are wasting your disk space.

A duplicate file finder is also useful if you need some arguments for introducing a collaboration software tool such as SharePoint in your network. If it turns out that the company newsletter has been stored a few thousand times on your file server, it is time to explain to management that internal circular e-mails are a somewhat outdated form of communication.

I didn't test if Fast Duplicate File Finder is really fast, but it is quite good at finding duplicate files. Actually, it is better than good because it can also find similar files. The lower the configured similarity level is, the longer the scanning process will take.

Fast Duplicate File Finder uses different colors to highlight the similarity level. The preview pane allows you to look at at contents of duplicate files. Unfortunately, Microsoft Office formats are not supported.

Fast Duplicate File Finder enables you to auto-select duplicate files. You can either choose to check the older or the newer file. In the free version, auto-selecting isn't supported for similar files. Check out the comparison table for differences between the pro and the free versions.

You can delete duplicate files, permanently remove, or move them to a configurable folder. It is nice that Fast Duplicate File Finder preserves the folder structure. So if a rebellious user complains that you deleted some of his favorite songs, you can easily find them again.

I tested Fast Duplicate File Finder 3.0.0.1 on Windows 7.

Fast Duplicate File Finder

7 Comments
  1. George 12 years ago

    Duplicate files may be a problem, deleting them can be a bigger one. They may be logically linked to other files in the folder (like a dossier).

    Utilities like these, intended for business use should offer a means to keep the integrity of the folder contents. This could be done through OS provided services (like symbolic links) or managed by a proprietry service.

    Butchering folders is simply not an option; try running it against your music collection and see if you like the results…

    George.

    • Jayden Benjamin 7 years ago

      I would recommend you to try Duplicate Files Deleter program.

  2. George, it depends on the environment. You certainly have to be careful before you delete files. I agree that replacing files with links would be a very useful feature. However, I am not sure if symbolic links would solve the problems. Hard links would probably be better.

  3. markbun 10 years ago

    I’m using “DuplicateFilesDeleter” it works for finding and erasing duplicate files.

  4. simon67 10 years ago

    I used DuplicateFilesDeleter and I was extremely pleased with the result.

  5. rickys joshuash 8 years ago

    I use “DuplicateFilesDeleter” software system that is multi-threaded and performs scans quickly.

  6. kamila rodrigo 7 years ago

    yes duplicatefilesdeleter is best software

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

© 4sysops 2006 - 2023

CONTACT US

Please ask IT administration questions in the forums. Any other messages are welcome.

Sending

Log in with your credentials

or    

Forgot your details?

Create Account