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i-DeClone Changelog

What's new in i-DeClone 1.8.0.0

Mar 21, 2024
  • CAPTION MESSAGES:
  • Simple status and error messages were shown on the statusbar, but some people missed them altogether. Now simple messages that don't require any action on your part show in a small caption window under the statusbar. This window flashes momentarily to attract your attention, then stays on for a few seconds and goes away automatically. To dismiss it quicker, click on the [X] button. If you didn't have enough time to read the message, double click on the left side of the statusbar to see the message again.
  • MINI-FACELIFT:
  • All dialogs are using the system Segoe UI font. Help > ABOUT dialog was redesigned and includes "social" buttons if you want to keep in touch using twitter/facebook etc. Checkboxes and radio buttons look much better in dark mode.
  • FIT COLUMNS:
  • If you have enabled too many file details, you may not be able to see them all simultaneously (a horizontal scroll bar will show in the results pane). In such cases right click on the pane header row and use FIT COLUMNS menu command, which will resize all file details proportionately so they all fit in the available space. Of course some columns will end up squashed...
  • SEARCHABLE OPTIONS:
  • Program settings (F12) are searchable. Use the filter box under the list of settings, type a simple keyword and it will show only properties that match your keyword (including their description text). Clear the search filter to show all properties again.

New in i-DeClone 1.7.4.0 (Feb 1, 2024)

  • MASTER FOLDERS:
  • When you run i-DeClone periodically to check for duplicates, you may not need to scan again your local hard disk, only compare it to an external HD for example. In this case set it (your C: drive) as a Master folder so that it won't be examined per se, only duplicate items that exist in the external drive will be found, saving you significant scan time.
  • To declare one or more folders as master, right click on them in scan options (Folders to search) and choose MASTER FOLDER from the menu. Master folders show with bold font

New in i-DeClone 1.7.3.0 (Dec 13, 2023)

  • Option for FRIENDLY DATES, turn it on from program settings (press F12 key or the toolbar button)
  • If enabled it shows file ages for items instead of exact dates, e.g. it will say modified in the last 26 minutes instead of 12/12/2023 11:28:32. Note files that are older than 2 months will show the full date as before
  • This setting affects ALL date properties, modified, created, date photo taken etc

New in i-DeClone 1.7.2.0 (Oct 23, 2023)

  • Dark mode improvements for windows 10/11

New in i-DeClone 1.7.1.1 (Jun 4, 2023)

  • Toggle buttons for yes/no settings

New in i-DeClone 1.7.1.0 (May 22, 2023)

  • When searching for generic duplicates (ALL FILE TYPES) if you tick Compare File Content advanced option it automatically uses only SIZE as the guiding file property, ignoring file name and date modified. This way you can find renamed duplicates. If you don't want this feature, tick off the AUTOMATIC checkbox in advanced scan property page
  • When comparing duplicate videos with ALT+2 (COMPARE ITEMS context menu) 4 video frames are generated 7 seconds apart and compared side by side. This will give you a better idea of the similarity compared to a simple thumbnail. Alternatively use the embedded video previewer to make sure the movies were compared properly.
  • Proper handling of float number property locale formatting (1.20 vs 1,20)

New in i-DeClone 1.7.0.0 (Mar 29, 2023)

  • MARK WITH MANY PROPERTIES:
  • The old mark wizard used just ONE file property to choose what gets deleted and what is kept in each duplicate group. The new MULTIPLE RULES menu command under Mark toolbar button (or press CTRL+F7 key) allows you to use 2 or more properties in case the first rule isn't enough, e.g. if you want to keep the biggest size and 2 items have the same sizes, you can add a rule that selects for the most recent date.
  • Any file property can be used for "arranging" items in order of preference, as you do in sorting the results. A grid control allows you to add properties and the conditions they apply. You can find more information in the documentation, click:
  • http://zabkat.com/declone/help.htm#mark_rulez
  • Dark mode improvements include dark messageboxes and dark progress bars
  • You can see previews and thumbnails of SVG vector graphics. SVG "pictures" can also be compared as pictures. If you have an older installation you can add SVG to the list of photo extensions using program settings. Note that SVG can also be compared as "text"
  • Wildcards and regular expressions can be used for text matching only in expert mode (for advanced filtering dialog)

New in i-DeClone 1.6.0.0 (Mar 1, 2023)

  • A new button on quick filter toolbar lets you filter or mark as duplicates items with high precision. Instead of matching a text keyword that appears anywhere in the results, it lets you target a particular column (file attribute) as they show in the results, e.g. you can show only songs with duration above 5 minutes. Matching rules depend on the type of the property selected; they can be text, numbers, and dates.

New in i-DeClone 1.5.0.0 (Feb 2, 2023)

  • IMPROVED AUDIO FINGERPRINTS. The algorithm that listens and detects similar songs is improved for deteccting the (variable) starting silence (if any). It is also 20% faster
  • TIME LEFT ESTIMATE. If a scan takes too long, the progress window will show the approximate remaining time in minutes. Remember you can just leave i-DeClone unattended to do its work, you don't have to interact with it before the scan is complete.
  • ADJUSTABLE MAIN FONT. The font used for the results list is adjustable through settings (F12 key). To enlarge ALL the program fonts (toolbars, menus etc) please consider increasing your system text size from Control Panel (display settings)
  • FOLDERS TO SEARCH. You can add folders to search also by copying them in windows explorer, then click on the folders to search box in scan options and press CTRL+V key to paste them, which may be more convenient than drag/drop. The box also accepts TEXT paths, one full path per line.
  • SAVED PROJECTS. When you press CTRL+F to start a new scan, double-click in UNFINISHED PROJECTS box (not on any file shown) and you will be able to select an older IDCS file to load (the box only shows the last 5 items you saved). Another option is to browse a folder with windows explorer and double click on a IDCS file, which will open i-DeClone and load the contents.

New in i-DeClone 1.4.0.0 (Jan 2, 2023)

  • EXCLUDED FOLDERS:
  • You can specify folders to exclude from a search in the FOLDERS TO SEARCH box. Say that you want to scan all C: drive but not a particular folder C:PRIVATE, you add both folders in the box, then you right click on the unwanted folder and use EXCLUDE THIS FOLDER menu command. Excluded folders appear in red letters. If you exclude a folder by accident, use the same menu command to turn it on.
  • To exclude folders with drag-drop, hold down <CTRL> key as you drop them into Folders To Search box.
  • Excluded folders must be subfolders of the main folder scanned, otherwise they are ignored.
  • Note that certain folders like C:WINDOWS and other system and hidden folders are excluded from scans automatically (if SKIP PROTECTED FOLDERS advanced option is ticked)
  • SIMILAR PHOTOS AND IMAGES:
  • The AI for similar photos relies heavily on picture date (the date it was taken). A new property called AVERAGE BRIGHTNESS can be used to find generic similar images by content (not necessarily JPG photos), which is useful when "date taken" is irrelevant, e.g. comparing PNG or GIF images. You can add this property manually in advanced property page, or clear FILES MUST HAVE SAME EXTENSION tickbox and it will be selected automatically for you. This way you can discover photos saved in different formats, or/and resized. In this context it is recommended to keep the similarity percent to 95% or higher, to avoid false positives.
  • BLURRED PHOTOS:
  • An experimental image property called BLUR INDEX is added in Legacy category. This shouldn't be used as a scan property, but only as a quality indicator for cleanup. For example, after you search for similar photos, right click on the column header and use SELECT COLUMNS menu, then add the new BLUR property. Photos that are lower quality have high blur index (100 and above). So if you sort by this column, the first item in each group is the one with the "better quality", so if you use KEEP THE FIRST IN GROUP option in mark wizard, you get to keep the best photo of each bunch, and delete the rest.
  • This should be used with care because the AI is confused with photos of blue skies, or sea, as it interprets the uniformity as "bad quality" which isn't always the case.
  • SET DEFAULT COLUMNS:
  • Some file details like size and date modified appear in all scan results, whether you search for photos or e-books. If you want to see more or less columns, first set them up with SELECT COLUMNS (right click on the list header to see the menu), then use SET AS DEFAULT from the header menu. Note each scan category adds its own relevant properties automatically, e.g. dimensions for photos. So you should select NEUTRAL properties with this command that are relevant to all scan types, or at least for those you use more frequently.
  • SIMILAR DOCUMENTS:
  • Comparing similar text files saved as PDF/DOC by content gets easier and better with the new PLAIN NAME property (which is the file name without the extension). The same text document saved as DOC and PDF may have very different file size, but if the basic names are the same, they can be used to match duplicates, e.g. REPORT1.PDF and REPORT1.DOC. This new property is automatically selected if you untick SAME EXTENSION advanced property.
  • STOCHASTIC REVISION:
  • The AI algorithms that power some of the similarity scans are random in nature, so if you run them twice on the same files, you can get slightly different results. This is the case for similar photos and similar documents BY CONTENT. Therefore if you don't like some scan results, press CTRL+R keys and run the scan again without changing any of the parameters and see if you like the results better.
  • The REVISE command found under CLEAN UP toolbar button menu can be also used with modified properties if that makes sense for your scan. Revision uses the SAME files, and is quicker than a fresh new scan.
  • FOCUSED DIALOGS:
  • Whenever a dialog window or message appears, the main deskrule window is alpha-shaded, to help focusing on the message at hand. This behavior can be turned off setting the advanced registry option GAO2_NOSHADEDLG (=64)
  • PRIMARY PROPERTY BOOST:
  • Similar file detection is feasible only if a suitable master property is used to sort the files so that similar files are placed one next to another. Regardless of the similarity level you set, the first property (as it appears in ADVANCED property page) is matched at a higher level (95% by default); only the remaining properties are considered at the level you specify e.g. 90% or whatever.
  • A new registry tweak called n1stColBoost controls this extra percentage given to the primary column. However you are advised not to change it because if it is lowered, scan time will get much worse!
  • In similarity scans you may want to split a large group that wasn't correctly identified, in 2 smaller groups. To achieve this, select the first item of the new subgroup then use SPLIT GROUP command from MARK DUPLICATES button drop-down menu.
  • <Alt+Up> arrow keyboard shortcut jumps to the previous group (Down arrow was already available)

New in i-DeClone 1.2.4.0 (Sep 15, 2022)

  • Select 2 items with thumbnail previews (e.g. images) to compare them side by side in a large popup window. Right click on the selection and use COMPARE ITEMS menu command. Previously this only worked for text files (windiff). This is especially useful if you are working with SIMILAR duplicates
  • The equivalent keyboard shortcut is ALT+2 ; remember ALT+Q is showing a popup preview of the focused item on its own

New in i-DeClone 1.2.3.0 (May 17, 2022)

  • Bugfix for readonly links etc.

New in i-DeClone 1.2.2.0 (Apr 22, 2022)

  • Groups of duplicate files are easier to tell apart using dashed divider lines.

New in i-DeClone 1.2.1.0 (Feb 11, 2022)

  • Multimonitor DPI fixes, switching monitors while declone is running should be smoother

New in i-DeClone 1.2.0.0 (Dec 12, 2021)

  • FIND DUPLICATE MUSIC BY CONTENT!
  • i-DeClone can now "hear" your music and discover duplicate songs regardless of their names, wrong/missing tags and what have you. It can see through all these kinds of "fake" differences of the same song:
  • different bitrates
  • different formats (MP3/FLAC...)
  • stereo/mono channels
  • starting silence
  • gain differences (loudness)
  • To try out this mode, choose MUSIC as the type to scan, tick "find similar files", and in the Advanced property page tick "compare file content". If you want to find similar music regardless of extension (WAV/WMA/etc), tick off "Files must have the same extension"
  • Scanning musical content is rather slow but very robust. I only saw a few "false positive" detections in this mode, at 90% similarity level. The audio signature is based on the starting 15-20 seconds of each track, so songs that are similar only at the beginning may be wrongly flagged as duplicate.
  • By design, 15 seconds are examined from each file, if you need more or less, tweak the registry setting msSongStart. Increasing this duration beyond 1 minute will increase the scan time and will increase false positives
  • FIND ONE SIMILAR FILE:
  • In expert mode, it is possible to add a FILE along with the folders to scan (using drag-drop into FOLDERS TO SEARCH box). This special search mode will only find files that are duplicate/similar to this added file, using whatever options you have set. This quick mode allows you to check a new file against a treated (decloned) collection.

New in i-DeClone 1.1.1.0 (Oct 28, 2021)

  • Possible to switch to express mode from standard mode property sheet ("fewer options" link)
  • Fewer nags in trial mode