Computers offer us an important advantage over mobile devices in terms of storage space, however, due to the freedom of movement that it offers us, this becomes a problem of space, especially when we do not use a structure to store all files we copy or create on the device.
And, over time, we can end up with a large number of duplicate files on our computer, a problem that has a very simple solution using an application to find and delete duplicate files. These apps use algorithms to scan and compare stored files on our PC to search for duplicates. The algorithms take into account not only the file name, but also the content and characteristics (date, size) of the files to determine if they are duplicates.
If we are looking for an application for this purpose, one of the best currently available on the market and which is also open source is Dupe Clear, an application that we can download from its GitHub website. The main advantage that is not offered is because it is an open source application since the user community has been able to analyze and verify that its operation is what it claims, and it does not include additional hidden functions that could put stored data at risk in our team.
The application divided the interface into 4 tabseach of which offers us different options.
- search location. Through this tab, we can establish in which directories we want the file search to be carried out. In addition, we can also base the file search on the file name, the creation date, the last modification date, among others. Once we have established what type of search we want to perform, we will click on the Start button.
- Additional Options. From this tab, we can establish the file extension that we want to search for (which allows us to narrow down the searches so that they take less time) and specify the dates between which they could have been created or modified.
- exclusions. Through this option, we can eliminate certain folders or files that include certain extensions from the searches. This tab is more of a complement to the Search Location tab, though, it can be used in combination with Additional Options.
- search results. This is where the search results that we have performed on our team are displayed. All duplicate files will be highlighted in yellow. From here, we can click on the file in question to access a preview, move it to another location or directly delete it from our PC to free up space.
It is very important to check all the duplicate files that the application finds if we want to avoid deleting any type of content that we are not really interested in deleting, and that could be a failure in the image detection algorithm, something that does not usually happen, but always there is the possibility The main negative point of this application, not everything can be perfect, is that It is only available in Englishwhich can be a problem for users whose knowledge of the Shakespearean language is limited.
