Spoon2001 said:
Looking for a good dupe file finder. Here some that I've tried:
Possibly "Find Duplicates"?
http://www.david-taylor.myby.co.uk/software/disk.html#FindDuplicates
Dupeless - PCMag, not freeware anymore. Can't sort the results by size,
unless I use size as a criterion for identifying duplicate files. I really
want to be able to sort by size so that I can wipe out the bigger dupes
first (even if the dupes aren't the same size).
Find Duplicates sorts by size, biggest first. You can't sort any other way.
Yet if that's the sort order you want anyway, then that part should be fine.
Second limit with Find Duplicates. All you can do with the list it gives you
is click properties, or click the delete key, on what you select. No other
functions (eg open containing folder, save list, etc). Yet deletion is all
you've spoken of here.
CloneSpy - gives me one set of duplicates at a time. I prefer a table list
of duplicate files like I get in Dupeless.
Find Duplicates gives them out like Dupeless. The columns have size, date,
attributes, file version, product version. (The version info is something
I value.)
Something you don't have is auto-select options, or even the manual selection
checkboxes for deleting, as you do with Dupeless. In Find Duplicates, you
have to go through each file in the list one at a time, hitting the delete
key.
DupeLocater - taking forever to run -
Find Duplicates is massively slow, and heavy, a real elephant. It does a
contents compare that can't be turned off, part of the slowdown...
no ability to customize how files are
compared by different criteria (name, size, date, CRC, etc)
Find Duplicates options are on or off for: "Require same name; require
same date/time." Also in there is "require same size," but I can't say I
understand that setting, given that the program identifies duplicates by
same content. I've just opened the readme file, and see some stuff about
checksum that I've not dealt with, or even up to studying right now, so
I'll just paste the contents about that, let you see what you think from
there.
<quote Find Duplicates readme>
BASIC USAGE
Extract FindDupl.exe from the archive to a folder of your choice and run it.
HOW DOES Find Duplicates WORK?
Find Duplicates scans one or more disks on your system to find multiple
files, in a two-phase process. First it scans all the folders and sorts
all the files it finds into size order (files HAVE to be the same size to
be identical - yes?) You can limit the scan to one folder tree, if you wish.
It then compares files of the same size to see if the contents are actually
identical, and lists identical files by size order. You can then double-
click on any file to examine its properties, and optionally move it to the
recycle bin.
HOW IS THE PROCESS SPEEDED UP?
This process can take some time, so Find Duplicates will first perform one of
two preliminary checks to see if the files might actually be identical
without having to actually examine the whole file. By default, it checks the
modification date and time of the files, and only compares the files byte-by-
byte if the timestamps are the same. But it is possible for two files to
have the same contents without having the same timestamp, so you can enable
an option whereby the first 512 bytes of each file are checksummed. This
improves the recognition of identical files, but it is slower, and since it
involves a file access, the file's last access date will be altered.
By default, the timestamp, not the checksum comparison is selected. In
either case, the filename is normally ignored, so simply renaming a file will
not hide the fact that it is a duplicate. The timestamp of zero size files
is ignored. If you wish, you can also require that duplicate files must have
the same file name. You may be rather surprised to discover what duplicates
by content actually exist in some popular office suites!
You can turn off the timestamp checking in favour of the slower checksum
method should you so wish. For example, if many identically sized and
timestamped files are found from the initial search, using just timestamps
might miss some duplicate files since the duplicates may not be adjacent in
the name ordered list produced by the folder scan. The program was not
designed for this sort of duplicate search, but will perform adequately with
timestamp checking turned off. You might also wish to disable timestamp
checking if you suspected that different products had installed identical
support DLLs.
</quote Find Duplicates readme>
