Overview

Duplicate File Finder is an application to find and remove duplicates on your Mac. It also allows you to organize files, merge folders, compare files for duplicates, and find similar pictures and music files.

When you launch the application, you will see the first dialog window that invites you to choose a folder you want to scan. From the sidebar, you can switch between different options to work with duplicate files:

• Find duplicates – the application will scan the chosen folders and disk and find duplicates of all types of files, duplicate folders, similar media files, and similar folders.
• Duplicate pictures – the app will scan your folders, disk, or Photos Library and find duplicate and similar pictures.
• Duplicate music – the app will scan your folders, disk, or Music Library and find duplicate and similar music files.
• Merge folders – here, you can choose two folders to merge and organize your files.

Here is how to use Duplicate File Finder:

1. In the Find duplicates option, choose the folders you want to scan.
2. Click the Start Scanning button.
3. See the results and select all unneeded duplicates.
4. Click the Review & Remove button and confirm the action.

Now let’s see in more detail how to find and remove duplicate files and folders from your Mac:

Step 1. Choose a folder for scanning and click the Scan button.

When you launch the application, you will see the first dialog window showing the “Find duplicates” option and inviting you to choose the folders you want to scan. You can scan your Home folder or switch to the Choose Folder tab and select individual folders. Note that you can even add an external disk for scanning. Duplicate File Finder supports both external and internal volumes.

Step 2. Get the results.

When duplicate scanning starts, an animated chart is displayed to reflect search results. The entire search process time depends on the volume’s size.

After the scan is complete, Duplicate File Finder will show you the list of found duplicate items.

Step 3. Select duplicates

At the top of the window, you will see different tabs, allowing you to switch between the following categories of items:

• Duplicate files (with a drop-down menu allowing you to see separately duplicate pictures, music, movies, documents, and archives).
• Duplicate folders.
• Similar media (similar photo and audio files).
• Similar folders.

Preview the files and select those you want to remove. If you have thousands of duplicates and need a quick way to select all duplicates, use the Auto Select button. It will select all duplicates and keep only one copy in each group of duplicates on your Mac.

Step 4. Remove duplicates

The last step is to delete duplicates by clicking the Review & Remove button. You will see the list of all selected duplicates. Preview them and confirm by clicking on Remove. If you want to keep some of the files, just uncheck the checkboxes by the names of the files and they will not be deleted.

Statistics window

If you want to see the statistic of types of duplicate files, in the menu bar, click View and select Overview.

You will see a window showing the size of the types of duplicates you have. You can choose to preview the details in either a bar chart or a pie chart. In addition, if you have similar folders (folders that contain a mix of duplicate and unique files), this tab provides information about their size. Also, here you can see the list of the Biggest Similar Folders and Cleanup Hints, designed to help you make the selection of the duplicates easier and faster.

Cleanup Hints

In the Overview window, you can find Cleanup Hints. They indicate which files to remove to free up as much disk space as possible. For example, you may want to remove the largest duplicates, remove duplicates in Similar folders, or remove duplicates with the most copies.

Three hints are given at a time. Each time you click the Pointer button you get new tips. In the screenshot below, you can see three types of tips for a fast and thorough cleanup.

To use the hint*, click it to view the preselected items. Preview the details and confirm the removal.

Duplicate Pictures

If you want to find only duplicate pictures, use the appropriate option in the sidebar.

1. Click Duplicate pictures in the app’s sidebar.
2. Choose the folders you want to scan (you can scan even your Photos libraries).
3. Click Start scanning.

4. Select unneeded duplicate and similar pictures.
5. Click to remove them.

Duplicate Music

If you want to find your duplicate music files, use the appropriate option in the sidebar.

1. Click Duplicate music in the app’s sidebar.
2. Choose the folders you want to scan. You can even scan your Music library.
3. Click Start scanning.

4. Select unneeded duplicate and audio files.
5. Click to remove them.

Similar Folders

Duplicate File Finder allows you to find not only duplicate files and folders, but also Similar folders. Similar folders are nearly identical, and contain both duplicate and unique files. They are presented in a convenient way for you to quickly compare them and identify unneeded copies.

What are Similar Folders?

Imagine you have several folders on your Mac or drive that contain identical and unique files. In this case, these folders are not duplicates, as they keep different data. The folders on the screenshots below keep two duplicate files and one unique file. In the Duplicate File Finder program such folders are called similar folders.

Similar Folders

To see similar folders, switch to the Similar Folders tab from the top menu.

Here you will find a visual representation of duplicates in two folders. The orange section of the two intersecting circles shows how many duplicates they have, while the blue section represents unique files.

Below the chart, you can see the list of copies and non-repetitive files.Please note that the app prevents the removal of unique files, so you don’t have to worry about unintentionally removing files you need to keep. You can select only identical files for removal.

If the folders keep mostly duplicates and only one or several unique files, then the visual view would be like on the screenshot example, where one circle is located inside another one. This means that the first folder (orange circle) contains six duplicate files, while the second folder (large blue circle) contains six duplicates and one unique file.

One folder may have several similar folders at the same time. The app shows all similar folders in one list, so it’s easy to review them and decide which files to remove and which ones to keep.

Once you’ve decided from which folder you want to delete the duplicates, tick the checkbox near the appropriate folder. On the screenshot, the number in the red circle shows how many duplicates are selected in the folder. The number in the white circle shows how many duplicates will be kept.

Once you select all unneeded files, click Review & Remove in the bottom right corner. You will be switched to the preview screen of all selected duplicates. If you are sure you don’t need them anymore, do the last step – confirm by clicking the Remove button.

Duplicate Folders

Duplicate folders are folders that have identical content and keep the same duplicate files. Note that these duplicate files can have different names.

Take a look at the screenshots below. These folders contain duplicate files and no other data, so they are duplicate folders.

The application shows duplicate folders in the appropriate tab of its window. Here, you can select all duplicate folders and remove them.

Please note that files inside duplicate folders are not displayed in the Duplicate Files section. So, when you remove duplicate folders, nothing changes in the Duplicate Files section.

Also, note that duplicate folders can contain other duplicate folders inside them. The application shows the folders of the top level of the directory only. It doesn’t display the inside duplicate folders.

Similar Media

Apart from finding absolutely identical photos and music by size and binary data, Duplicate File Finder also finds and displays similar photos and audio files.
If you like to take many pictures to get the best one, then you may have plenty of unnecessary similar photos. Here’s how to manage your similar photos, quickly sort them, organize, and remove unwanted pics. The process of clearing unneeded similar audio files will be the same.

1. Switch to the Similar Media → Similar Photos tab.
2. Here, you will see photos grouped by similarity.



3. Review each group of similar photos and select unneeded ones. The green frame and violet frames indicate which photos from the list are displayed in the Preview section.
   
4. You can also use the Auto Select feature to automatically keep one picture in each group and select all other files.
   
5. Once you have selected all unwanted photos, click on Review & Remove and confirm their deletion.

Select Duplicates in Folder

If you have many duplicates, it might take a significant amount of time to review each file and select unneeded copies in a specific folder. That’s why Duplicate File Finder provides a special feature that will help you to complete this task much faster.
Go to the Select Duplicates in Folder tab.

You will see a new window with a list of your folders and detailed information about how many duplicate and unique files each of them has.

Here you can also preview the duplicate files. For this, click on the “Show the Selected Folder Content” icon at the top of the window.

You will see the folders’ content.

To select all duplicates in a specific folder, just mark the appropriate checkbox near the folder’s name. You will see how many duplicates were selected in this folder – the number is marked by red color in the second column.

If you want to allow duplicates to remain in a specific folder, you should click on the Star icon near its name. The Yellow Star means that duplicates in this folder will be kept. Duplicate files in other folders will be selected for removal. The number of files to be kept is shown in the third column. So, if you want to select duplicates in a folder for removal – tick the checkboxes near the folder’s name.

If you want to keep all files in a folder, and select their duplicates in other folders – click the Star icon near the folder’s name.

If you don’t see checkboxes and star icons for selecting folders, this means that your scanned folders don’t have common duplicates.
The same will be if you scan only one folder, all the found duplicates are inside this folder, and this folder doesn’t have subfolders.

There is one last step to remove all duplicates from a selected folder. All you need to do is to click the Review & Remove button. The application will let you preview the files once more and, if everything is in order, confirm your task by clicking the Remove button.

Note that when you remove duplicates in the “Select Duplicates in Folder” window, you can be assured that you will not remove all copies accidentally. At least one duplicate will be kept because the application makes it impossible to select all folders and duplicate copies.

Merge Folders

Duplicate File Finder provides two options to merge folders on your Mac. You can merge similar folders the app found during the duplicates scan process. Also, you can choose any two folders on your Mac and merge them no matter whether they have duplicate files or not. The steps of these two options slightly differ.

Option 1 – Merge similar folders

To merge similar folders, follow these steps:

1. Select and scan your folders or disks using the “Find duplicates” option in the sidebar.
2. Switch to the Merge Folders tab. You can also click the Merge Folders button in the Similar Folders tab.

   

3. Select the source and destination folders to move or copy the content. You can select multiple source folders. Simply check the checkboxes for the required folders.

   

4. Before merging folders, you can specify the preferences for the action. Click the gear icon in the top right corner or go to the Preferences → Merge tab. Choose whether to move or copy unique files from one folder to another. If you wish to add color tags to the merged files, choose the color for each group.

Once you have set up all the necessary preferences, click on Review & Merge. In the next window, you will see which files are going to be copied/moved. If everything is right, confirm the merge by clicking the Merge button.

For example, you have two different images named Picture.jpeg. These files are located in two different folders. When you merge the folders, the moved/copied file will be renamed to Picture-1.jpeg.

If your two files had the name Picture-1.jpeg, then after merging folders, the copied/moved files would be renamed Picture-2.jpeg.

Option 2 – Merge any folders

If you want to merge any two folders on your Mac without scanning them for duplicate content, do the following:

1. Switch to the Merge folders option in the sidebar.
2. Choose the folders you want to merge. You can drag and drop the folders right to the application’s window.

3. Click Review.
4. Choose a destination folder – the location where the content from the source folder will be moved to. Also, you can choose a new empty folder for moving or copying the content of merged folders.

Note: You can select how you want to merge folders: copy files from a source folder to a destination folder or move files. You can change these settings in the Merge tab of the Preferences window.

5. Confirm the action by clicking the Merge button in the next window.

Restore Removed Files

By default, the application moves all these files to the Trash when you remove duplicates with the application. If you accidentally removed some files and would like to restore them, follow the steps below.

1. Go to the Menu Bar → Duplicate → select Restore Removed Duplicates or use the Command+Y shortcut. Also, you can just click the Show Removal History button in the removal window.
   
2. Select the files you want to restore using the checkboxes for files and groups of files. Then click the Restore button.

Note, to be able to restore the duplicates, the option Log Removed Duplicates has to be enabled. You can check it in the Preferences → Remove tab. Tick the checkbox always to save your duplicates’ removal history.

Also, note that if the duplicates are deleted from the Trash, you will not be able to restore them. It is only possible to restore files in the Trash folder or have duplicates in other folders. You can see next to each file name whether it is Restored, Restorable or Not Restorable.

How to find the original files of the previously removed duplicates

Usually, we have a lot of duplicates in different folders. That is why it can be challenging to remember where the original file is located. Fortunately, the Duplicate File Finder application can show you the original data of the previously deleted duplicate.

To manage this, you should open the Duplicate File Finder’s removal history. You will see the list of all deleted files grouped by the date of removal. Select the necessary file in your list and click on the icon called “Show Original file in Finder”.

This option will open the Finder window with the path to where the original file was stored.

Preferences

Duplicate File Finder can be finely-tuned for a quicker and more efficient duplicate search process by adjusting its settings or by using its helpful options.

To open Preferences, use the Command(Cmd) + Comma sign (,) key shortcut or go to the Menu bar → select Duplicate File Finder → click Preferences.

Here you will find six tabs:

Let’s take a closer look at each section of the settings.

General Tab

In the General tab, you can choose what you want to find:

• Find duplicate folders – the folders that contain duplicate content
• Find similar folders – the folders that contain both duplicate content and unique files
• Find similar audio files – the audio files that contain the same audio track, however, they are not 100% identical
• Find similar photos – the photos that look very close or almost identical
• Full-scale scan for similar photos – find similar photos of different sizes. The Full-scale duplicates scan option means that the application will perform an extra check when comparing duplicate files.

Scan Tab

By default, Duplicate File Finder skips scanning small files. This helps to speed up the scanning process by finding only the largest duplicates. However, you can set the minimal file size you want to be scanned. Choose from the options in the Scan tab, depending on your needs:

• Skip small files
• Skip files smaller than…
• Check all files

Also, in the Scan tab, you can switch on and switch off the following options:

• Scan options for files sizes
• Scan hidden folders
• Full-scale duplicates scan
• Open the Music app to synchronize detected duplicates in your Music library
• Save and restore scan results. This means that if you close the application, the scan history will be saved. When you run the app the next time, you can quickly view the results of the previous scan.

Skip List Tab

In this section, you can select the folders and files to be skipped from the scan. In the sidebar switch to one of the sections you want to be ignored:

• Folders
• Folder names
• Files
• File names
• Extensions

Click the Plus button to add items or use the Minus button to remove items from the Skip list.

Auto Select Tab

Using the Auto Select button, you can define folder settings to be selected or never selected. It’s a convenient option when you need to remove duplicates from particular folders. For this, add the folders you want to the Never Select list to exclude them from selection, and add the folders to the Always Select list to remove them when the Auto Select button is used. You will find these configurations in the Auto Select tab of the app’s preferences.

Also, you can add prefixes and suffixes used in the file name.

And finally, you can enable or disable other rules for the Auto Select option by marking the appropriate checkboxes and by choosing the preferred option for each.

Remove Tab

When you remove copies of files, some folders may become empty. If you want to remove the empty folders automatically, enable the option Remove empty folders in the Remove tab.

Removal options

By default, when you remove files with Duplicate File Finder, they are sent to the Trash. Here you can change this and make the application remove your files permanently without moving them to Trash. Generally, you can select one of the following options:

• Move to Trash
• Delete without moving to Trash
• Move duplicates to a folder

If you select the third option, you will be asked to choose the folder from Finder.

Merge Tab

Besides finding and deleting duplicates, the application allows you to merge the scanned folders. In the Merge tab of Preferences, you can choose how to merge folders:

• Move files to a destination folder
• Copy files to a destination folder
• Set Finder color tag to merged files

Advanced Tab

In the Advanced tab of the Preferences window, you can enable or disable the following messages and options:

• Show the Overview tab after scanning
• Show confirmation window when using the Auto Select option
• Show confirmation window after successful removal
• Allow removing all duplicate copies (if you enable this option, you allow the app to remove both the duplicate copy and the original file)
• Remind to regularly clean up duplicates
• Send anonymous usage data

Disk Access

In the Disk Access tab of Preferences, you can check whether you granted Full Disk Access to Duplicate File Finder or not. The application requires Full Disk Access to be able to remove selected duplicate files. If you haven’t done that, you will see the Open Preferences to Grant Access button. Click this button, and you will see the Security & Privacy section of System Preferences where you can grant Full Disk Access.

Shortcuts

There are a lot of quick navigational shortcuts in the app that make your duplicate cleanup process even faster and easier.

General Navigation

Similar Media tab

Selecting the files

*This shortcut works only when the option to remove all duplicate copies is enabled.

Other Shortcuts

The algorithm for searching for duplicates

Before checking files for identity by their data, the algorithm for finding duplicate files uses the main characteristic – sizes of the files. This means that if two or more files have the same size, they are then compared by their data. The filename is not taken into account. Users often rename files, so identifying duplicates by name is not reliable. Furthermore, different files might often have the same name.

For example, If there are two identical files with img.png and myphoto.PNG, they will be displayed as duplicates. However, if two files differ from each other in size – even by one byte – they will not be displayed in the application.

With the app, you can find duplicate files in several folders or even hard disks per single session.

Specify a folder for duplicate removal

Imagine you have two folders with with many duplicate files. You want to choose from which specific place to remove the duplicates and where to leave them untouched. In other words, you need to remove them from one folder but keep them intact in another. It may be inconvenient to go through each file and flag it manually. That’s why Duplicate File Finder provides you with the possibility of skipping this operation and making duplicate removal superfast and easy. There are two scenarios for this task:

Compare folders for duplicates with the Auto Select button

1. Launch Duplicate File Finder.
2. Open the app’s Preferences and switch to the Auto Select tab.
3. Add folders from which you want to remove duplicates to the “Always Select in specified folders” list.

   

4. Add folders you in which want to keep files to the “Never Select” list.
   
5. When the scan is finished, click the Auto Select button. You will see the selected duplicate files in specified folders. Review the selected files and click Review & Remove.

   

Compare folders for duplicates with the Context Menu

1. Choose the folders you want to scan and click Start scanning.
2. After the scan has completed, switch to the Duplicate Files tab, where you can preview the duplicates of all the file types. When you click on each file, you can see which folders contain them.
   
3. Right-click on the file from path representation and call the context menu. Use the “Select All Copies in …” command for the specified file.
   

Full disk access

Duplicate File Finder is a software tool that optimizes and cleans up your Mac from unneeded duplicate files, folders, and similar photos. All the duplicates you decide to delete with this app will automatically go into the Trash.

Sometimes an important file may accidentally be deleted. Fortunately, you can easily recover deleted files and folders with Duplicate File Finder. For this, the app has to have Full Disk Access.

If you see a notification that the app doesn’t have Full Disk Access, your application doesn’t have access to the Trash.

To provide Full Disk Access to Duplicate File Finder and let the app restore items from your Trash, do the following:

1. Open the app’s preferences and go to the Full Disk Access tab.
2. Click Open Preferences to grant access.

A guide for macOS 10.14-12:
Alternatively, you can go to System Preferences → Security & Privacy → Privacy.
3. Select the Full Disk Access section.
4. Click the Lock icon to make changes and provide your user password.
5. Click the Plus icon.

6. Add Duplicate File Finder from the Applications folder.
7. Click the Lock icon again to prevent further changes and close System Preferences.

Steps for macOS v.13:

1. Open System Settings.
2. Go to the Privacy & Security section.
3. Click Full Disk Access.
4. Switch on the toggle button for Duplicate File Finder.
5. If you don’t see the app in this list, click the plus(+) icon and add Duplicate File Finder.

Now, you can easily restore all the removed items from the Trash.

Compare 2 Macs for duplicates

Duplicate File Finder can help you even if you want to find duplicates between two Macs. For this, follow the steps below:

1. Connect your two Macs using Apple File Sharing. For this, go to the System Preferences → Sharing.
2. Enable the File Sharing option.
3. Please note, if you use macOS High Sierra, we recommend that you use the afp connection option because High Sierra is unstable with the smb connection. For this, click the Options button to set it up there.

4. After this, you will be able to select the whole disk or some folders from another Mac you want to compare.

Uninstall Duplicate File Finder

Follow these steps to manually uninstall the app:

1. Quit Duplicate File Finder.
2. Go to the Applications folder → remove Duplicate File Finder to Trash.
3. In the Finder’s menu bar, click Go → Go to Folder → in the window that appears, type ~/Library, and hit Go.
4. Within the Library folder, find and remove Duplicate File Finder service files. Note, that depending on the version of the app you use, you will need to find and remove different folders.

If you downloaded the free version of the app from the App Store, find and remove the following files:

• ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.nektony.Duplicates-Finder
• ~/Library/Containers/com.nektony.Duplicates-Finder

If you purchased directly the PRO version of the app on the App Store, find and remove these files:

• ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.nektony.Duplicates-Expert
• ~/Library/Containers/com.nektony.Duplicates-Expert

If you downloaded the app from the site, find and remove these files:

• ~/Library/Application Scripts/com.nektony.Duplicate-File-Finder-SII
• ~/Library/Application Support/com.nektony.Duplicate-File-Finder-SII
• ~/Library/Caches/com.nektony.Duplicate-File-Finder-SII
• ~/Library/Preferences/com.nektony.Duplicate-File-Finder-SII.plist

Once you removed all service files, empty your Trash bin to completely uninstall Duplicate File Finder.