FuzzyDupes

Having to work on a daily basis with similar files, text or other items, most likely ends up with at least a duplicate entry at the end of the day, be it for simple backup purposes. When it comes to text, it's used not only by editors, but are also the main method of storing items in a database, which can stand for anything that needs to be recorded. This is where FuzzyDupes wants to help out by searching through databases in order to remove duplicate entries.

The application's set of features is suitable for office work, but since it's only able to load local TXT/CSV files, it's better of performing database searches. Truth be told, databases are its strong point, with an impressive array of sources you can pick, such as Excel tables, Access, SQL-Server database, Windows, Outlook contacts, or options to manually specify the path and type to connect to, such as ODBC or OleDB.

This is all done in the initial project setup screen, which takes you through a series of steps to configure special and duplicate fields to look up, as we ll as normalization methods to make work easier later on. Worry not, because any of these changes can be accessed again at any given moment.

Issuing a search process is not really what you might expect, with no fields to type in specific words to look up. The application uses automated algorithms based on cluster and duplicates threshold to either find similar entries or all records with the same tag.

Results are generated in a jiffy, with the total number displayed and an option to view only a certain amount for an easier initial approach. Entries are stored in a well-organized table fitted with multiple columns, depending on the number of items found. Line is also displayed, which comes in handy for looking through programming code.

If you want to look for custom words, it's only possible after detection of duplicates. An integrated search engine lets you easily locate either an exact piece of text or as much of it as possible. Cleaning up the list is easily done by selecting entries to remove. You can take you time and manually pick, or simply select all of them at once.

You can gather up various data according to available columns. It's possible to create a list for later processing if you're not really sure whether or not they need to be deleted. In terms of exporting, you can print out data on a sheet of paper via a connected printer, or export to TXT and CSV files.

All things considered, we can safely state that FuzzyDupes is a practical utility to keep around if you're in charge of handling constantly updating and changing databases. It saves you the trouble of manually scrolling through dozens of entries to spot duplicates by applying advanced algorithms to instantly detect them and letting you deal with entries in the way you see fit.