Detect Duplicate Files - How To Find And Eliminate Duplicate Files Attempting to delete duplicate information is a long and tedious task, especially if you have a full hard disk. It's however very important. Having lots of duplicates in your system can cause quite a few problems. They can slow down the body, cause DLL errors, blue screen crashes and clog up your hard drive so you can't install anymore data.
Where Did Each one of these Duplicate Files Originate from?
Winding up with duplicate files on your system will all rely on that which you make use of your computer for. If you play games a lot than the could be where they're originating from. If you download films and music, or torrent files then you may have acquired them through the internet. Probably the most frustrating methods to obtain duplicates is by uploading images to your system. This is actually the complaint that I hear most about. Nine break of ten individuals will end up with double images because they will upload photos from the digital camera or SD card, take more photos, upload the new ones without deleting the main one ones and then the old photos will get uploaded too.
delete duplicate filesHow do i Eliminate Duplicate Files?
Unfortunately you can't automatically remove duplicate files with built in windows software. You can however use the built in system tools to remove data and reduce the errors which are brought on by having lots of duplicates. I would recommend using the Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup utilities every few weeks. This will make certain your system is running at optimum speed.
To manually locate and delete duplicates you'll have to search for them yourself. The quickest method of doing this really is to:
1. Look for a file that has a duplicate.
2. Note down what the file type is.
3. Open up the My Computer area.
4. Type the name of the file type in to the search bar.
5. Once the list is populated put everything in alphabetical order.
6. Scroll down the files and delete icons with the same name.
7. Do this again for any other file type you need to remove.
8. Empty the recycle bin.
This is not the most efficient method, but it works perfectly. If you have a slow computer then you will probably have duplicate file paths in the system registry. I wouldn't recommend deleting these manually unless you know exactly how to proceed. You could end up corrupting data and causing more problems than worth.
find duplicatesManually Removing Duplicate Files From The System Registry
If you wish to remove data manually i quickly would recommend that it will save you all of the data that's currently stored in your registry. This will make sure that your computer can revert back to its previous state if you delete the wrong file or folder. To edit the files you have to:
1. Press the Start button, then your Run icon, and check "regedit" within the search area.
2. Navigate within the folder that shows up on your desktop and press the File tab and so the Export option.
3. Save all your data, preferably onto another source.
4. Double click the folder that's labelled HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
5. After you have deleted the files reboot the body.
Sorting out the duplicates which are on the system registry will help you improve your computers performance. Should you follow these actions carefully then you shouldn't have a problems, however it isn't recommended.
Using Software To Detect Duplicate Files
This has to be the quickest and easiest way to find and delete duplicate files. There's a program called the Duplicate File Cleaner. This software can automatically search your computer and delete duplicates with just the click of a button.