Best And Most Reliable Duplicate File Scanner?

[AnthonyG]

Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone knows which is the best and most relaible duplicate file scanner/eraser.

It is just I have over 3 Gigs of word documentations in six folders which I want to drastically reduce. However I am suspecting quite a few in these six folders are duplicates. I am also suspecting some are ones that I had saved for safety before the word document was complete. But obviously this means it may be of the same name and size as the complete document.

Therefore what i was wanting was to deleate all the duplicates. But also make sure that I dont deleate a newer version of the Word document because it has the same name as an older non complete saved version of the same document.

Any suggestion on the best program to use for this and be sure that it wont make any mistakes.

Thanks
Anthony

[tony62]

Hi Anthony,
jv16 PowerTools 2006 (http://www.macecraft.com/jv16powertools2006/) has a very good duplicate file finder, I have used it in a similar scenario to what you are asking for.

EDIT: Taken from the help file,

-{ Quote: "The duplicate file finder
finding duplicate files, i.e. files with exactly identical contents, is practically impossible without a
good tool designed explicitly for that. The duplicate finder is a very easy and straightforward tool
for finding those duplicate files.
The duplicate file finder uses triple optimised, bit-by-bit analyser, it means that it analyses the
contents of the files bit-by-bit to be 100% sure the files are in fact identical." }-

[ThunderZ]

How about a stand alone app.?

[tony62]

-{ Quote: "How about a stand alone app.?" }-
DupeLocater (http://web.archive.org/web/20040203022210/www.midnightblue.com/dupelocater.htm),CloneSpy (http://www.clonespy.de/english/),DoubleKiller (http://www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekiller/) all from www.tinyapps.org (http://www.tinyapps.org/) and probabably 'Standalone'.