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pcwizz1

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Identifying Multiple Files that Are the Same

I have a lot of files on my computer of various types. I would like to find a program that goes through the files and tells me where I have multiples of the same files.  The same file file may be in more than on directory. I would like the program to go through and check the entire drive for multiples of that file so I can delete multiple instances of the file.
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Olaf Doschke
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☠ MASQ ☠

+1 for dupeGuru
However you should only remove duplicate data not system files - you'll find a load of duplicate dll and other files in your system and although they have the same file name they will be different versions of the same system library files. These all need to be kept as the installed programs that came with them may only run with the specific version installed and most are not backwards compatible with newer versions.

dupeGuru also has specific duplicate finder options for music and image files that uses metadata and fuzzy logic to find matches as well as file name.
Yes, very important. Keep out system directories. CCleaner actually also lists the many duplicate .NET framework dlls and while they even may be binary identical, they are part of v1.0,1.1,2.0 etc. version folders and shouldn't be removed from any of those.

You better have files you want to dedup on drives D:\ E:\ or some folder like documents, downloads, etc.

Bye, Olaf.
You need to define "identical" identical content, issues with removing duplicates may result in individuals who saved them not being able to locate their file.

Transitioning to a document management system will handle the dupolication.

using md5sum categorization of all files, then files with identical md5 sums will indicate they are identical.
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ASKER

Hi All... The drive I will be scanning is NOT a system drive. It is a drive I added to the computer strictly for data files I create. Word, excel, Photoshop, pdf, ect. The drive is only used for storage. Over time I have copied files from my iPhone, various thumb drives, CDs, ect. I am sure that I have copied some files from various media that were duplicates. I hope this helps...
No worries. If you only run this on an external drive with mere data/documents there is no problem.

Bye, Olaf.
FWIW, I have used DiskState to help track down wasted space on drives, and duplicate files.

http://www.geekcorp.com/diskstate/overview.php

~bp