All your songs, high-definition pictures, and videos do matter – no question about that! But their duplicates don’t. At some point, you may realize that before you didn’t pay enough attention to struggling with all those replicates of your files piling up and eating a large chunk of space on your Mac. Damn, you might not even have suspected about them until you couldn’t download the latest episode of so much expected show because of the lack of the free space on the hard drive. Now you see that deleting all those duplicates manually became a hell of a task that could take up hours if not days. Is there a way out? In fact, there is!
The good news is, life is easier with duplicate finders – apps specially developed to search, detect, and delete doubled files in just several mouse clicks. No matter, do you need a Mac OS X Lion cleaner or macOS High Sierra utility, in the end, you will have cleared out the hard disk, retaining only original items.
In this post, we briefly review four highly-rated and reputable duplicate finders for Apple computers available in the market. For each of them, we’ve pointed out major benefits and short-comings.
MacClean
MacClean is a proven duplicate finder tool that serves well to free up enough storage space and thus, improve the performance of your Mac’s operating system. It provides a great avenue to readily locate and eliminate duplicate files (songs, pictures, videos, etc.). With MacClean, you can search file copies both throughout the system or in a specific folder(s). The price for a 1-year license for one Mac is $19.99. Below are few pros and cons of the app you might be interested in:
Pros:
- You can preview the duplicate files.
- Smart Select option helps you automatically select all detected duplicates in one click.
- It has a Group by the feature that allows you to preview only the desired files and folders you wish to scan.
- Supports Mac OS from 10.7 to 10.13.
- Supports 5 Languages, including English, German, Spanish, French, and Japanese.
Cons:
- The Smart select option sometimes searches irrelevancies or sometimes excludes some files that you wish to scan.
- Cannot identify very similar files (for example, photos taken a split second apart).
Gemini 2
Gemini 2 is an improvement of famous Gemini (first version), and it has incorporated some new features for a better duplicate finding experience on your Mac. Unlike the previous app, Gemini 2 can detect similar files. The price for a single license is $19.95. Below are some of the features you might like:
Pros
- Gemini 2 makes use of a fast scanning algorithm system to remove duplicate files on your Mac in a very smart It can identify similar files that do not even share identical file names.
- It also gives you the opportunity to preview the duplicate files before deleting them, coupled with an undo button for reversing last minute errors.
- It supports over 10 different languages, and it is seamlessly integrated with the operating system, making it possible to search for duplicates straight away from Finder.
- It is integrated with iPhoto libraries as well as with iTunes.
- It supports network volumes and external drives.
- It makes use of a data chart to divide your duplicates by file type.
Cons
- If Gemini 2 discovers a duplicate file, say a picture, it will only remove the one it discovers, leaving duplicates yet in the iPhoto folder. Same goes for iTunes files.
- With the auto-select option, it makes it easier to mistakenly delete useful files.
Duplicate File Finder
Duplicate File Finder designed for Mac is free that has proven itself as a valuable tool to detect unwanted file doubles. It is quite easy to use, with a lot of lovely features that will certainly catch your fancy.
Pros:
- It has a search engine that can locate files using different criteria, including; filename, byte-by-byte (that is, using binary), which means that it can detect duplicates disregarding their file names.
- You have the option of selecting folders to exempt from the search, or you can run the search on the entire drive.
- Once started, your search can be paused and saved for future use.
- You can decide to sort duplicates found either by their sizes, types, names or duplicate counts, and you can also decide to export the list to CSV or HTML files.
- It also gives you the opportunity to preview the duplicate files before deleting them, coupled with an undo button for reversing last minute errors.
- It likewise supports external devices, such as hard drives, removable devices like memory sticks.
- It has a free version and a Pro version that comes with a fee of $4.99.
Cons:
- The free version can neither locate nor remove duplicates in hidden folders.
- The free version cannot remove the duplicate files in similar folders, except you upgrade to the Pro version.
dupeGuru
dupeGuru is also a great duplicate file finder tool for your Mac, and it is available online for free. The app comes with a simple design that makes it easy for just anyone to use.
Pros:
- It is available in more than ten languages, including French, English, German, and many more.
- It uses a fuzzy matching algorithm to conduct its search for duplicates, and it detects copies with different filenames but similar content.
- It can scan tags and has the option of showing information pertaining to
- Files can be exported to HTML file.
Cons:
- Has annoying pop-up messages.
- The speed of the scan leaves much to be desired.
This list of best duplicate finders is non-exhaustive, but they are one of the most decent solutions for your Mac. They were compiled as a product of accurate, extensive research and reviews of customers’ experience using the apps.