Ok, I used this program yesterday, and it found a whole bunch of duplicates as I expected. I had to check each set of duplicates to decide which copy I wanted to keep, and placed a check mark next to those I wanted to delete. This was time consuming, but I was glad to be able to make the decisions myself. I found several alleged duplicates that weren't the same item at all! Of course, I just ignored these and did not delete either! The search method did not just look at the files based on file names, which was good since I had added more description to the name of some of the files, and it included these in the duplicates.

Now for the bad! After I had selected about 6 gig of data to be deleted, the display on my screen started to act erratically. I was unable to scroll up and down within the results list, and sometimes that window showed the same two or three items repeated throughout the entire list. It seemed to not be able to refresh the view even when I asked it to. When I changed the width of the first column, then it would correct the view. I had to do this many times as I attempted to scroll down until I could get to the point where I had stopped selecting files. I went ahead and permanently deleted those that were very obviously duplicates, and it marked them in "red" and left them on the list. I had not completed reviewing the list, but was very frustrated, because when I switched over to Firefox to check my email, it seemed that this program messed up my ability to view pull down menus in Firefox! It also added several generic icons to my desktop, that I had deleted years ago (Internet Explorer, My Documents, and My Network). When I rebooted my computer this morning, those icons were no longer there, as I wanted, and Firefox is working correctly again. I am a bit hesitant to try the Easy Clone Detective, even though I have many more duplicate files to remove. I think I will plan to do it on a day when I can ignore Firefox completely.

The program was also unable to properly fill the screen on full screen view. It had the correct icons in the top right corner, but the top blue bar of the window did not reach the top of my screen. When I selected it to "tile" the window, it separated into two sections, and I couldn't work with it this way at all!

#65, old scotty

i think by 'content duplicates' (same content) you mean (for example), the same image, but 1st file saved as jpg, and 2nd file saved as png.
imo, those are two different files (and some kind of crc would determine them to be different).

I used CloneSpy for years, but now I use Clone Terminator. I got it for free, but I don't know if it's always free. I intend to try the other free dup finders mentioned, but I'm not interested in any that don't compare actual CONTENT.

My impression is that the interface is too simple and the number of options too limited for the desired results with this type of program, much less for safety. Too much chance in my opinion of getting too many matches and deleting something you don't want to delete. Another program I have had good results with is DoubleKiller (http://www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekiller/), which comes in both a free version and a "pro" version with more options, and several years ago I tryied the free version and liked it so much that I paid for the "pro" version, which I continue to use for the purpose. I frequently scan large drives containing thousands of file in hundreds of directories totalling several hundred gigabytes, and DoubleKiller Pro is quite fast and allows for multiple options to scan for and multiple ways of sorting the results.

doing right click with chosing delete this checked file says needs to be registered. clicking the menu delete permanently files above works.

have it see full names of added folders to check "-" and "- - ftl" are TWO different folders ... THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. checker refuses to add the other if either is chosen to be checked. i name things this way to get in front of the normal listing. they sort fine on machine, clone checker doesnt see them as different.

is it just using names of folder to first blank ???

One other comment re. developer and people remarking about speeding up computer by reducing number of files.

In general, most modern operating systems (say XP and up) do not really care nor will they be faster by removing duplicate files.
However, there are two cases where removing dups and or excessive files will noticeably speed up your computing experience.

1) if you hard drive is so full (and so fragmented) that there is not much free space, then both the hard drive and the OS will take a bit longer to work with files and programs as it searches and swaps data more. So in general, I recommend you have always 15 to 20% free space on your primary system drive.
Thus, if you are near that almost full state, getting rid of some large duplicate files will help. As would copying least-referenced user data to external storage. Obviously do NOT copy off system files!

2) in Windows (XP anyway) while it technically allows you to have 9,999 files within a directory, I have found that anytime I get over 1000 files in a directory (folder), the system responds slower when it must access that folder. At least on my Win XP Pro Pentium computer (so, OK, its old... :( ).
In this case, if you have dups on your computer and some are the cause of having too many files in a single folder, then removing dups might result in faster response time.
(Caveat: This 1000 file limitation may only apply to situations like my older XP machine. Maybe Win 7 and a faster cpu make it seem transparent... sigh.)

To Charlie,

regarding tool to compare MP3 files --
This is a good question!

The tool I use is Beyond Compare. It is a share-ware (pay) product, and has been around for quite a few years, with regular updates by the developer (Scooter software). No affiliation to me.
For music files, it will compare and show the differences of internal components, thus allows you to find same song dups that happen to have different ID3 tags.

However, it is not a whole-drive scanner for dups, rather, you give it two (or one) directories to compare, and it will do a super detailed comparison of the files therein.
But still, I've had it a while and consider it a good tool.

There are also a few other specialized tools (I think) that will compare songs.

WHAT THE HELL????? It detected the duplicate files. I felt good. Bt when i tried 2 move it to the recycle bin or permanantly delete files then it asked me 2 register. Isn't it cheating???

I'm never disappointed at the great wealth of knowledgeable people who take the time to comment and share. Many tell us about freeware products that are comparable or better than the giveawayoftheday. Or not quite as good but you can get them if you miss the giveaway.

Whether the giveaway is great, eh or thumbs down, I always learn so much here before I download. Plus I get tips on installing and using the product.

Software writers couldn't pay for a focus group like this ONE! They're told of bugs and what features to add. They should pay attention and re-offer their fixed product.

A duplicate file locator was given away a few weeks ago. It detects near duplicates by CONTENT. Look back.

There seems to some problem with the comment counting system. A few times in the past few weeks I voted a comment was helpful and this site PUT A - (minus) sign there. ??? There may be a technical error in the way the site records the vote.

Why aren't there TWO counts? One of positive votes for the comment and one for negative votes for the comment? What is a SINGLE NUMBER count supposed to mean? ??

Thanks again all! ;)

@27 you need duplicate music file finder. It is free and works great. Hope this helps. Reg.

A bit disappointed really; I use my own program to find duplicates but it is slow as it is thorough, size (initially for speed) and hash for certainty. I found no improvement with this program.
There does seem some confusion between file duplicates and content duplicates, mine checks the former, God alone knows how a program could check the latter for all file types. In video types alone there will be huge differences depending on codecs and compressions used.
One other point, computer speed, a large number of duplicates on a drive that is heavily fragmented could slow things down but whether it is noticeable is a different matter.

Hmmm. I am amazed at some of the comments, particularly the negative ones. Comments have gone from very high positive marks a couple of hours ago to negative marks now. Looks like we have two undercurrents going on - one is younger users who have a fav deduper and are pushing it at the expense of this nice software offering today while they negative spam positive comments, and we also have one other developer?? who is recommending a high priced ($25 per computer)but feature devoid clone finder over this one. Hmmm.

Overall, the features, selections and ease of use of this software does not merit the negativity. But there are enough good reviews here for those needing a nice, easy duplicate finder to give it a try.

If you don't empty the bin the files will be detected as dupes again, obviously
Free alternatives are plenty and just as good.

Dirk ... try:
1. do image search for what you recall best.
freeware audio (or mp3?) duplicate (or another word?)

2. and look at freeware download sites:
freeware audio duplicate site:ware-download-site.org

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/easy-clone-detective/#comment-228364
no, you can drag files out of recycle to anywhere.
also leaving recycle open in explorer allows you to see the files as they "land". (At the bottom in xp and earlier. Vista drops them "erratically"... i think whether vista auto-sorts or not, depends how the files were transferred)

It will speed up my computer? Really? By eliminating a few duplicate files? How drastic will the performance boost be, exactly? What if one of those duplicates lives in my C:\Windows\System32 folder? How fast will my computer be then? Do you have a powerful algorithm to calculate BS? People who believe this hype probably also believe the lies they hear on those commercials pumping MaxMySpeed.com and FinallyFast.com. People will believe anything.

@35 Mark - thanks for making my point. easy clone detective makes this easy. sure, we can all do it in multiple steps but that sort of defeats the purpose wouldn't you say? also, don't use descriptive words out of context. your quote is incorrect.
@48 miker - please read the comments. Don't use words out of context. further, relatively few of the duplicate cleaners do allow archiving or simply segregating duplicate files. sure, you can find exceptions, one for free and two for excessive cost, but this one has this feature, it is a good feature, and it is free today on GAOTD.
the purpose of comments is to help people decide if this software has features they might find useful. to that end I have posted my comments.
please check the value given to each of your comments. flaming is not good, and the people here at GAOTD are smart enough to catch it.

This is Gold! Easy to install, register and use. For me, it found left-over's from programs I had uninstalled that were left in Documents and Settings. I went to Documents and Settings and deleted the folder's. Other duplicate file finders that I have come across only list the duplicated files and folders, this one will give you removal options. I would say it is safe. And yes, it will do a new scan without a re-boot.

#52. Try using the checkbox on the left side of the file - instead of right-clicking the file.

#32. Why don't you close the program and run it again instead of running it again direcetly after deleting some files?

#38 - I had renamed some of my book files and this program found the duplicates anyway. Example: ''A Short Course in Using Your Digital Camera - Curtin, Dennis.pdf'' and ''Digital Photography.pdf'', both the exact same file but with totally different names were found and placed together. It did find one file ''The Conquest of Caanan and another ''Conquest of Caanan (The).txt and place them together. The first file was in ''My Epubs'' folder, so I could clearly see these were the same book but in different formats.

Since Easy Clone Detective exports so I can print out the files, I can go through each one and figure whether I want to delete, save or move them at my leisure and then physically highlight the ones I worked on.

Duplicate Cleaner only exports to one format - csv - not useful to me. Easy Clone Detective exports to Word 7, Excel 7, html, csv and xml.

CloneSpy is portable too: "How to extract: Download the installer and select 'portable version' at installation type."

#47 Tks Urban......No it did had another name and it was freeware.

Meanwhile i'm looking, if there is an option in Media Monkey.

I installed and activated it. Program comes up stating registered to givaeawayof the day. Ran seach and presented with lots of duplicates. However when I right click on a file and selected delete, I get a message that I need a registered / full version to delete files?

Scans fast. Allows for several types of export - very nice feature. Can export and then print and review files later at my convenience and move or delete them later. Nice simple interface. Easy to use. Finds duplicates even though their names have been changed - a plus!

#36 promytius
Take a look at WinMerge. It might help you to compare the folders' content created by your recovery program. WinMerge has all possible comparing options, make the settings.

#26 - Did you do a reboot before you scanned the second and third times?

Not wishing to fall out with Software Guy who posted at #39, but. . .

Sorry, there's nothing "extraordinary" about today's GOATD Easy Clone Detective. And it would be a pity if anyone took your remarks as being 100% correct.

Duplicate Cleaner, which is long-established freeware, also offers the choice of deleting dupes or archiving them.

Personally, I've never seen the need to archive duplicates, otherwise what was the point in finding 'em in the first place???

But then, I'm very picky about what dupes I treat as junk: get it wrong, and as Mike has pointed out earlier, you can be junking not so much a duplicate as an anchorage or reference point for some other, critical, program.

I have both Duplicate Cleaner and Oleksandr Roslov's DupKiller (also freeware) on this computer, and though Roslov's app seems marginally better than that from Digital Volcano, taking both together they're all I need to locate redundant Microsoft Office files, photos, and -- to qualified extent -- audio files.

A quick look at the specs and performance promises of today's Easy Clone Detective doesn't persuade me that this commercial ware is a major step forward, rather that it seems to be a re-invention of a wheel that's already turning quite nicely in the hands of existing freeware developers.

Thanks to GOATD, as usual, and also to Refero Group, publishers of today's software -- but at 25 bucks a throw, you might be better advised to develop a different commercial app in a much less competitive market sector.

"#27 Dirk. Probabely you are referring to Audio Comparer, $34.95 at
http://www.bolidesoft.com/

Thank you GAOD for all the offers. I especially appreciate all the comments because they help me decide. I have no programming background and won't run to my daughter with all my questions so thanks.

This software check the file via size, and is size is equal check the file crc. We implement on the next version byte to byte comparison also.

I have two directories:

C:\DOC\ & C:\DOC.43\

First I added C:\DOC\
Then I went to add C:\DOC.43\

Program tells me:

Error!
Parent directory
("C:\DOC")
already exists on the list!

The error message is wrong.
Not being able to add the directory is wrong.

No need for me to proceed any further to know this program is Fail.
Not to mention the serious faults already mentioned in other comments above.

As with any dupe finder program... be careful. It is fine to delete dupe songs, pictures, docs, etc. The other files? You better know what they do before you blindly delete them. Otherwise you may end up with programs that won't work. Or even worse. Thank you GAOTD team for all of your efforts and thank you to the publisher, Refero Group Software, for the offer.

PS. GAOTD team, would you consider rerunning yesterday's offer after it is fixed. I could not get it to register on my XP machine and reading the comments I see that I was not the only one.

DUPLICATE CLEANER is far BETTER than this GAOTD, as it can even find duplicate files by CONTENT and not just by the same FILENAME.

So, if two files have different filenames but the same CONTENT, DUPLICATE CLEANER will find those files unlike today's giveaway.

Did I mention that it's FREE?

http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/content/duplicate-cleaner


So, in my humble view, charging $25 for a SW like this one is sheer madness, if you take into account that there are Freeware Tools out there (like Duplicate Cleaner) that can offer more advanced features than this GAOTD.

lol does anyone recommend this who's a techie type of person?

And I found something rather funny on their page describing it..second paragraph talks about their watermark software, and then the next paragraph is talking about the clone detective again ^^ Peruse your information before leaving it there for people to read? It's not just a misspelling or something, it's a whole paragraph ^^

@Gonzo (#20):
The filesystem does not maintain a single index of every file in it (each directory is maintained separately) and the total number of files on your hard disk does not directly impact your computer's startup time.

Not the right program

Well after saying this, you will be wondering on my comment but no! I created two files or rather two diffrent files with 80 % content same but same size in kilo bytes (byte size is diffrent). Then i fixed the time stamp on both the file as an arbitary new one to refect same. And now both were detected as duplicate!!

I conclude its checking file via time stamp or size... a good method to fool.

I will try this one as I have tens of thousands of duplicate files on a SATA drive that crashed and then was recovered; I am an idiot, and so I did not uncheck the files to be recovered as I did them in batches and did not discover the error, as I was proceeding alphabetically through the files to recover. I ended up with hundreds of thousands of duplicates, triplicates, quadruplicates, and so on. BUT they all have different numerical names, so they are not "perfect" duplicates. I am still manually reviewing them, as I haven't found a program with the flexibility and the intelligence to help me resolve all these dumb dupes. My bad; so my warning is to make sure previously tagged files are untagged after processing; what a mess - almost a year now and I still haven't cleaned up the files; hope this helps. Thanks GOTD.

@ Software Guy # 30

"... The recycle bin does NOT let you work with it as if it were a folder. You must restore some or all files then work where they are restored..."

You obviously do not know that if you explore the recycle bin you can select (some or all the deleted files) then CUT (the "Copy" command is unavailable in the recycle bin) them and paste them wherever you want... Even in your extraordinary “Duplicate Files” folder.

If this was the reason that led you to conclude that "Easy Clone Detective" is a very good program all I am saying is that you should probably consider other factors.

This is one of the best utilities presented by Gotd. I just managed to get rid of 7.3gb of duplicate files. phew!

Installed and activated fine on my XP SP3.
It may be easy to use but at the expense of control.
Didn't seem that fast to me.
Better free ones out there.

Fubar...

Ya missed the point..

Why is the program finding the SAME duplicates that it has DELETED TWICE??

this is a very good clone program for free on giveaway of the day. Why is this one good? Well, nothing looks extraordinary EXCEPT this one lets you make a folder and name it something descriptive like "Duplicate Files" then, when you find duplicates, one of the choices it asks is to send to recycle bin or send to folder - you can send to this duplicate folder and double check them before deleting. Most programs simply let you delete to the recycle bin which is a pain in the rear to work with. The recycle bin does NOT let you work with it as if it were a folder. You must restore some or all files then work where they are restored. Using this method, which I think is brilliant, you can first sort out apparent duplicates using one method, move them to a file. Now run another duplicate test, this time maybe crc to double check. now delete the dupes.
This one simple feature sets this program apart from the rest.

Slow as a dog!
Started it a few hours ago on my USB3 Passport drive and it is now on 26%! 149212/568515 and analising.

Doubt it it will get to 100% by close of day!

Won't bother loading at home with multi TB of files.

Installed ok and run on WIN XP SP3, display of dupes ok, but this version does not allow you to delete a specific dupe file, says need to upgrade for this. Ideally it should have a binary compare function.

#26, beachboy, there is a recycle bin per drive, for convenience Windows makes it appear to the user that there's a single Recycle Bin. The space allocated for the Recycle Bin is normally set in relation to the drive size, so it will be small for a low-capacity USB flash drive. You can manually specify a size for the Recycle Bin per drive, but of course, there's not much space available on a typical USB flash drive. A simpler solution is simply to move the duplicate files to another folder.

Does somebody know a music-file duplicate finder, based on "listening" to the music? In the past i did have one, but lost it and don't know the name anymore.

Not worthy of installation..

The install and activation went smooth.
However, when tested to scan for duplicates on a flash drive.
87 dupe files found. They were all checked and deleted to the recycle bin.
A NEW scan was again ran to check the SAME drive.
It AGAIN showed 50 of the same files that were removed to the RB.
Those, again checked and removed to the RB.

A third scan of the same drive again was conducted to see if the drive was now free of the same duplicate files.

Scan #3 revealed 22 of the same files that were deleted twice.

Draw you own conclusions...

I deleted this useless piece of JUNK to save space on my PC.

OK, I'm going to spell things out for the benefit of those who haven't downloaded Easy Clone Detective, not for those who downloaded it and were too lazy to do the most basic of UI functionality checks.

In the results window, clicking on a file will show some of its basic properties in the Info pane on the left. Clicking on a checkbox will select/deselect the file. Double-clicking a file will open it in its associated application or execute it. Right-clicking a file gives the following options:
Select/Deselect this file
Select all duplicates of this file (i.e., all other files in the group)
Execute (or open in associated application)
Open folder of this file
Move to Recycle Bin
Delete permanently
Move to a specified folder

YYYY-MM-DD-HH-MN-SS is a standard convention for an easy to compare time-date stamp (sorts correctly without special handling). I didn't have a problem with Recycle Bin functionality.