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Eliminating duplicate files - freeware?

Pineman100
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Posted September 13, 2011 at 5:40PM

I'm a photography enthusiast, and over the months/years I have built up a huge quantity of image files on my hard drive. A substantial proportion of these are duplicates in one way or another - principally:

  • Files that exist in more than one format (eg: jpeg, .psd and .nef (raw)
  • Files that I have edited in various forms and saved under different names from the original.

I'd like to try and get hold of a software package (preferably free if possible) that will hunt down all the various versions of an image file and offer them all to me so that I can decide which versions to keep and which to delete.

I'd like the software to gather up files that have the same name but a different file extension.

I don't know whether this is possible, but ideally I'd also like it to draw together files that are visually different versions of a single original file - for example, versions that have been differently cropped or edited. Am I expecting the impossible?

Any and all recommendations would be very welcome. Thank you.

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Nontek

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Posted September 13, 2011 at 7:31PM

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cocteau48

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Posted September 13, 2011 at 8:12PM

Possibly something here:

enter link description here

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Pineman100

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Posted September 14, 2011 at 10:42AM

Many thanks to you both. I'll have a look at those.

Any more suggestions that come with personal experience of the software, please?

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Graphicool1

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Posted September 14, 2011 at 11:01AM

Hi Guy's

I too will check out your offerings, because like Pineman100 I have many photo's and artworks, which for various reasons are saved with different names and file extensions. I've seen such programmes as you are showing P'100, in the past and have always been suspiscious and not a little concerned that my prescious - to me - pictures might be deleted.

Have either of you guys actually used such a programme yourselves?

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Pineman100

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Posted September 14, 2011 at 11:38AM

Graphicool1 - I can understand your nervousness at losing precious photos. Speaking for myself I would never embark on a de-duplication process without backing up my entire image collection first.

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Graphicool1

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Posted September 14, 2011 at 12:30PM

Hi Pineman100

"backing up my entire image collection"

Actually I have, however, perhaps I'm just being paranoid, but back-ups on either an internal or external HDD can still be vulnerable. In the past I've lost 3 HDD over a period of a few years - without warning - and they weren't all the same make, nor were they from the same source. The concensus of opinion at that time was heat.

Only one of them contained - the only copy of - my work. Fortunately I was able to retrieve it in it's entirety. With the help of a friend who has a local PC repair shop. Since then I've always made sure that I have more than one back-up.

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Peter

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Posted September 14, 2011 at 1:33PM

Pineman100,

I think VisiPics might be what you are looking for.

VisiPics

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Pineman100

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Posted September 14, 2011 at 1:43PM

Thanks, Peter. That looks very promising indeed. I've downloaded it and will give it a try over the next week or two, then report back.

Nontek - I looked at Duplicate File Finder, but, judging from the user reviews it seems that there's a 2MB file size limit. Since very few of my image files are that small, it's probably not going to suit me needs.

Many thanks to everyone for your thoughts and ideas. I will report back later, in case anyone else is interested in my experience with VisiPics.

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