TechTips - Find and Delete Duplicate Files

Hard drive space is always at a premium no matter how cheap hard drives are getting. No one wants to waste drive space when they don't have to, duplicate files can be a huge drive consumer and it's something that can be prevented. The only problem is most people don't want to go searching for duplicate files, it would be too time consuming. There are two free programs that will do all the hard work for you, then all you have to do is check over the files, choose which to delete and let the program get rid of them for you, problem solved, disk space saved!

The two programs we will evaluate in this guide are Duplicate Cleaner and Auslogics Duplicate File Finder, both of which are FREE. In this guide we will install each, run a scan for duplicate files, delete the duplicates and decide which program has the edge when it comes to usability.

Duplicate Cleaner is the first program we will test out, you can get it from Download.com (a trusted website that you don't have to worry about when downloading from). Once you have the installer file, simply double click it and go with the defaults through the install.

Once installed we will want to run a scan with some options set so we can find the duplicate files on our PC. Follow these instructions:

1 - Double Click the Duplicate Cleaner Icon on your desktop

2 - Choose your language from the drop down

3 - Click OK

4 - At the warning prompt click OK (you can also check for updates at this point if you want)

5 - In the Search Criteria Tab click the Select folder Icon (middle of screen, yellow folder)

6 - Choose the folder you want to search (I choose my user account folder, you can chose anything you want, even the entire hard drive, I don't recommend this because you will get a ton of system files)

7 - Click Select button next to the File Filter drop down and choose Everything

8 - Click Check box next to Same File Name

9 - Click Check box next to Same Date

10 - Click GO button

You will get a prompt that tells you how many files were scanned, how many duplicates were found and how large the size of the duplicates is collectively (mine is 117MB of space that I could be saving).

Next we will select the files we want Duplicate Cleaner to erase and clean up all of our duplicates and get that space back. To do this follow these instructions:

1 - Click close on the prompt window

2 - Click each check box next to any file you want deleted

3 - Click the Remove Selected button

4 - Uncheck Delete to Recycle Bin (warning this will delete the files for ever)

5 - Click Delete files button

6 - Click Yes

7 - Click OK

8 - Click Close

9 - Click Exit

10 - Click Yes

Now let's do the same operation using Auslogics Duplicate File Finder (click link to download program)

1 - Double Click the Icon on your desktop

2 - Click the + sign next to Users (you can select any and all folders but for my demo I am using my user account)

3 - Check the box next to your User Account (mine is TEST)

4 - Click Next

5 - Check the box next to Match contents

6 - Uncheck the box next to "Ignore Files Smaller than" (I want to scan all files)

7 - Check the box next to "All File Types"

8 - Click Scan

9 - Check each box for any file you want to delete

10 - Click Delete

11 - Click OK

12 - Click OK

13 - Click Close

Now with Auslogics Duplicate File Finder it moves all of your unwanted files to the recycle bin and you must empty it to actually delete the files. This is an added step but not a major inconvenience.

There you have it two FREE programs that can quickly and easily help you find and delete duplicate files from your computer. I don't know which would be considered better, both have their strong aspects and both have flaws. I personally preferred Auslogics Duplicate File Finder only because it has less steps to complete the scan and delete process, it also doesn't send me unnecessary prompts telling me to be careful when I know what I am doing. The choice is yours though as to which program you want to use, I suggest trying both before deciding.

Now you have cleaned up all of your duplicate files, you have more space that was basically being wasted by files that you didn't need. As a side note you might want to check out the files in question, just in case you for some reason have a file that is named the same but is a different file. Always be careful when deleting files from your machine, you don't want to have to use recovery software to get the files back.