14 DAY TRIAL // Duplicate files can take up large amounts of your precious disk space and can take a toll on system performance. Bytessence DuplicateFinder was built to detect such clone files and redeem the storage possibilities that are of essence to any user.
Removing redundant or duplicate files that clog your system is essential for its speed and optimization. When you have hundreds of files and folders scattered everywhere on your hard drive, it’s very likely that your computer may be hosting multiple copies of the same data. This will reflect harshly in terms of performance, choking up your system’s abilities to work seamlessly.
These plaguing duplicate files will give a hard time to all the processes running on your workstation, making a virus scan or a defragmentation process last forever. If these are not good enough reasons to perform a disk cleanup, the extra space that you can claim must catch your attention.
Bytessence DuplicateFinder is just the tool you need for freeing up your hard drive and giving it a breath of fresh air. This particular freebie hunts down duplicates with amazing speed and provides a wide range of scan options, as well as quite a few possibilities for the result files.
Everything is simple with this application, from the installation process, which will take only a few seconds to its intuitive interface that predicts no complications whatsoever, from the moment you see it. You’ll quickly grow fond of the wizard like GUI, which will basically guide you through every step you need to take in order to remove the dupes residing on your system.
The Welcome screen offers you a few pieces of information regarding the purpose of the application and a touch of advice, courtesy of the developer. He points out that you should pay extra attention when performing deletions, as removing certain files can turn out to be very unfortunate and may affect the well-running of your system. This is also the only window that provides access to the Settings of the application, so before moving to the next step, you may want to give it a glance. It allows you to predefine the behavior of the software during and after the scanning process and has an option for keeping a detailed log file.
As far as folder settings are concerned, you can customize these from the second window of Bytessence DuplicateFinder. Not only can you configure the folders to be included in the scan, but you can also set exclusions, the locations that will be skipped while the scanning is done. By default, the Windows folder from your C partition is excluded from the scan. Nevertheless, you can choose to remove it from the exception list, but at your own risk.
This is also the place to input the file types that will not make the object of the scan. By default, the application comes with a list which contains the most common system file types, in an attempt to prevent less experienced users to delete important data. This feature saves a lot of the processing time, the longer the list, the shorter the scan. If you want to drastically minimize the scanning interval, the application also enables you to define a set of extensions that will be exclusively taken into consideration in the scan.
The third screen of the program provides you with rich and various matching options that include file date, attributes, size content and name. The date filter allows the identification of duplicate files that have been created, accessed or modified in a time interval that you can manually select. Bytessence DuplicateFinder also does a great job targeting files by their attribute (read-only, system, archives, hidden or compressed). For instance, novice users that are unfamiliar with system files can uncheck this particular filter, to avoid loss or damage to their computer.
If you’ve made up your mind on a particular size of the files that may have duplicates on your hard drive, there is a solid option to set the application to search for files that weigh between two variables that you need to input. In this particular third step, aside from file filters, you also get to choose the matching mode, which includes a few predefined scanning algorithms that pretty much cover all the basics. The one that stands out the most is by far, the content matching one. The CRC32 algorithm it uses is MD5 hash based and makes sure that files are 100% identical, even at byte level. So, if you want an accurate and thorough scan, to the darkest corner of your hard drive, this option is the most suited one.
If you’re looking for a lighter type of analysis, you should check out the other scan types (by name, size or date). The matching mode you decide to use influences the scanning process in terms of duration. Scans using the CRC32 algorithm are more costly than the ones involving simpler matching criteria, such as file name, size or date. Ultimately, it comes to the type of compromise you’re ready to make. A shorter scan is sure to be a superficial one, while a deeper type of analysis, which translates into a larger amount of time spent, is also a safer and healthier one, with promising results too.
There is no reason to be worried what so ever, because speed is one of the many advantages Bytessence DuplicateFinder is ready to offer you. I was quite impressed that it managed to process 100 GB of data under five minutes, with very low resource consumption (the CPU peaked at 20% and the RAM at an average of 11 MB).
The scanning process is the fourth step in this well guided journey and monitoring it is made easy with the aid of the statistics list displayed under the progress bar. It enables you to view information regarding the conducted scan, such as elapsed and remaining time, the total number of processed files, and the count for scanned and found duplicates, as well as the amount of processed data.
The results are available in the next window with plenty of possibilities to handle them. They will be shown by name, in expandable groups, allowing you to select the one you want to recycle or move. Right clicking on a group allows you to make selections for the oldest or newest files and also offers you a quick way to expand or collapse all the available trees. A more advanced way to select duplicates is provided by the Selection Manager feature, which grants you the chance to sort files by name, path or size, thus considerably narrowing the list.
Another set of options is made available by right clicking the duplicate files. From here, you can open them, view their properties or add them to the exclusion list. Another aspect that needs to be mentioned resides in the app’s ability to export the list to a text file, with details regarding size, name and date. Although these are very useful and rich features, processing the dupes is nonetheless the purpose of the program and is among the characteristics that essentially contribute to its value.
The operations you can perform with the duplicates include moving them to another location, copying, recycling or sending them as parameters to an external program. It is actually a satisfying palette of processing capabilities, which also give the user flexibility and a high level of control over file management.
Bytessence DuplicateFinder turns out to be very accurate in finding “twin” or “triplet” files that take up space on your computer. Its skills may actually harm your system than do it good, if you’re not careful. This is probably the reason why, by default, the Windows folder is excluded from the scan. However, if you insist on including the System Files in the scanning process, the application will do its job and find duplicates that are sometimes necessary for your PC to work properly. Advanced techniques for protecting critical are not provided at this stage of development and the responsibility of dealing with an unfortunate deletion is left entirely to you. The Good The wizard based principle that Bytessence DuplicateFinder was built upon is to be appreciated, especially by less experienced users that can only benefit from this step by step guidance. The speed that it brings into the game throws similar software way back into the Stone Age.
The various matching criteria and the possibilities it provides for selecting and processing the duplicate files are quite the mix, covering almost every aspect that is of interest.
The Bad Bytessence DuplicateFinder claims that it can track any type of file, but that’s not exactly the case. The application seems to be doing fine with most of the formats, but not with text files.
The program is not very generous on clearly showing some of the options, at least for the last step. There are a few valuable features hidden in a few little buttons, which can pass unnoticed if in a hurry.
Also, the remaining time, during the process scan is not displayed correctly and selecting all the duplicate files is not possible at this stage of development.
The Truth Bytessence DuplicateFinder targets all types of users and carries out a very good job. Its clever algorithms will detect everything that has a copy on your system and free it from the unnecessary load of data that prevents it from running at its best. Nevertheless, like any other software belonging in the cleaning category, it’s got “Handle with extra care” written all over it.
Here are some snapshots of the application in action:
