Of course, all the options in the world are useless if you don't take the time to go through them, but we found AllDup's settings easy to handle. AllDup has some nice extras, such as the ability to add an entry to Explorer's context menu, to designate external programs like Word for tasks like file comparison, and to specify plug-ins that the preview pane will use to display certain file types, such as media files.ĪllDup seems to have things covered when it comes to comparing files by name, size, extension, and attributes-even byte-by-byte Content analysis-as well as excluding things you want left alone.

As with all responsible duplicate finders, it can move files to a safe folder for review before you delete them.

Starting with the Pictures folder on the C drive, we applied it to several drives, finding not only duplicate images and media files but also multiple copies of some programs and updates in different download folders. Despite its extensive filtering and targeting options, AllDup proved pretty easy to use. We were impressed by numerous options for configuring, filtering, and displaying search results, most customizable via buttons with labels such as Add, Enter Text, Replace, Edit, Open, Remove, and Check. Log and Profiles buttons are handy if, for instance, you regularly upload a lot of snapshots from your camera. It's a free duplicate finder that seems to have an answer for every question, at least those pertaining to finding and rooting out duplicate files, wherever they hide.ĪllDup's default interface displayed our drives and folders with checkboxes to select them for searching. Good thing the programmers aren't taking it lying down! For example, there's AllDup from Michael Thummerer Software Design. Today, duplicate files are more like stubborn body fat, your PC's 'love handles': Not exactly welcome, but too much trouble to remove.

Programmers responded with duplicate file finders, which had a bad habit of misidentifying duplicates.

Back when disk drives were huge in size yet minuscule in capacity, duplicate files were like coronary blockages, a growing problem that could crash the system at any time.

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