Duplicate File Finder

Working with media files, especially pictures, can leave multiple copies behind in different locations, thus eating up space for no reason. After some time, these files end up filling your hard disk drive, but you can easily identify them with specialized applications like Duplicate File Finder.

On the one hand, the application is portable, meaning you don’t have to spend any time or effort with a setup process to make it work. However, .NET Framework is a mandatory component, so you need to check whether or not it’s installed on your computer. Another perk of portability is that system registries remain intact during, and after use.

The visual design is rather rough around the edges, with plenty of unused space in the main window, while the preview area of duplicate files is inconveniently small, especially if many duplicate pairs are found. However, this simplicity allows you to quickly accommodate with the set of features.

There are two ways in which you can identify duplicate files on your computer. For the first one, you need to specify a file, while the application attempts to identify all of its copies, but you also need to point to a folder to look into.

The second method is triggered from the same window, and is similar in requirements to the first. The only difference is you only need to specify a target folder, and the application automatically looks for all duplicate files, enlisting them in sets.

Results are shown in a compact panel, letting you scroll through all pairs, or duplicates of a single target file. However, there’s no possibility to directly open identified files, or even source paths, since results are shown as text. There’s not even an option to remove files, so management needs to be done through conventional ways.

All things considered, we can state that Duplicate File Finder doesn’t bring anything new on the block, coming a little underprepared for what it wants to achieve. The whole process is easy enough to put in motion, letting you look for duplicates of a single file, or all from a folder, but with no management options, cleaning up your computer becomes a lengthy task.