Trying to clean up some old drives where I know there are a lot of redundant copies of folders and such. Anybody have a favorite go to deduplication software? Merge capabilities would be helpful I think…
Looking at Tidy Up vs Duplicate File Finder, with Cisdem as a dark horse. Gemini seems slick but not powerful enough. My understanding is Kaleidoscope is really for comparing files to each other.
thanks!
Are these large items you’re looking for? If so, even though this isn’t strictly what you’re asking for, I find Omni DiskSweeper very useful. It’s a free and very simple tool that makes it super easy to find what’s hogging disk space.
Thanks… I’m just looking to get rid of duplicates in particular (and in some cases probably triplicate or quadruplicates!)
Tidy Up has a demo version available (full search capabilities, but removals limited to 10) on their website. As far as I can tell, Duplicate File Finder and Gemini both sell only through App Store so no demos. Tidy Up’s demo convinced me to buy the full version–pricy, quirky, sometimes abstruse, but it saves me much time working with 10s of thousands of files from different sources.
That’s great to hear about tidy up! I found the interface baffling but will return to it based on your recommendation… learning curve not too bad?
Do any of these duplicate finder apps work on photos? I need a photo duplicate finder app.
Tidy Up’s download page appears to be broken.
For photo duplicates there are a few but I use Duplicate Annihilator for Photos#
https://brattoo.com/propaganda/#photos
Actually, as I said, it’s quirky. Give it a good workout in the demo version. I ended going with “simple” mode with the “Pro” version–“advanced” mode seemed to need more/different criteria than I was prepared to provide. “Simple” did straight up file comparisons that gave me expected results (which given results for 10s of thousands of files, I could only spot check…make sure you’re backed up).
I think they all do, but since I got Tidy Up, I’ll point out that the program allows searching for only specific types of files (like photos) if desired; or, you can take your combined results and concentrate on only photos. Try the demo. Definitely works on photos.
It worked when I downloaded the program day before yesterday, and I checked it again after your post (download button on top level page when navigating to site) and it still seems to work. So, ???
Interesting. Apparently there appear to be multiple Tidy Ups. Which one are you recommending here? The former looks quite outdated and a bit sketchy (“MAC”, “Pentium class” ???). So I’m assuming the latter?
I might not have answered your question very well. I agree that the interface is…unusual. Necessarily, this leads to a steeper learning curve. However, I was able to figure out how to get the results I wanted by playing around with it. Consider that as long as you’re not deleting or moving search results, it’s sort of non-destructive editing. I’m not sure what the difference is between pro and not pro versions, but if you get pro, maybe start in “simple” mode to see search results.
The product offered by Hyperbolic Software. I missed the first one you list, which does indeed look sketchy, as you say.
@janesprando I use PowerPhotos from Fatcat-Software and achieved good results. I’m aware that it’s not the only solution out there. At $29 not the cheapest, you can try it out fully, but have to pay up once you decide that you want to use the suggested findings. In other words you will see exactly what it will do to your entire photo library before you pay.
I have been pleased with PhotoSweeper from the Mac app store. You can use several different criteria to compare the photos.
I’ve had good luck with Gemini from MacPaw.
Some duplicate removers will mess up your Photos library.
The Duplicate File Finder guys assure me they are OK on that.
Also, when you are removing duplicates, know that there are going to be duplicates in your Mail library that are supposed to be there.
(A little off topic but I thought people should be warned.)
I’m sorry, but what does this mean? Are you referring to mail attachments? I assume you don’t mean the potential millions of files that have never been touched by Mail.
My notes say: mail duplicates - remember there’s a plist that’s duplicated that must not be deleted