Duplicate Files

Duplicate Files automatically finds duplicate files in specified drives or directories, whether they are on the local disk, removable storage devices, or network locations.

It compares files by content to determine duplicates and lists groups of original files and their clones. However, the software tool is not equipped to handle file deletion, so you have to manually do this.

There is no setup involved, which makes Duplicate Files portable. It's packed in a single file that can be saved anywhere on the disk or even on a removable storage unit, in order to launch it on any PC directly, without any previous installers. More importantly, it doesn't make any changes in the Windows registry or create additional files on the disk without your permission.

The interface is user-friendly but rudimentary, making Duplicate Files look like an unfinished software project.

By default, it searches all drives for duplicate files. However, you can exclude any of them from the scan scope, as well as add directories to narrow down search results using a folder tree view. All these locations are noted in a text box, and if you want to type full paths, make sure to delimit multiple entries by semicolon.

The search task may take a while, depending on the size of the targets (it was generally fast in our tests). During this time, you can view the total number of scanned files in the status bar, along with their full paths. You can cancel the job anytime if you change your mind.

On search completion, the utility places the full paths of the original files and their duplicate counterparts in separate groups, which can be explored in a tree view; the parent of each tree represents the original item. Although Duplicate Files doesn't integrate removal options, it enables you to open any file's location in your default file browser by double-clicking its entry.

It worked smoothly in our tests, without hanging, crashing or prompting error messages. As expected, it used low CPU and RAM. Although it features only basic options for finding clone files, Duplicate Files gets the job done rapidly and with little user intervention.