AllDup

If you start cleaning up your hard drive, you can free a lot of disk space by deleting duplicate files. Because most of them are not considered junk files, disk cleanup software will not touch them. This is where duplicate finders come in. They will search your hard for files which are similar in various way. It is easy to plan on using such a program, but with so many contenders on the market, it is hard to choose one. With effective and easy to use features, AllDup is one of the best choices.

The fact that AllDup is freeware is another good reason to get it. The setup kit is only 3.27 Mb large and you can have the program up and running in no time. It is compatible with all popular Windows versions and the low system requirements make it accessible, even if you have a low end computer.

There may be many buttons on the interface, placed on two separate toolbars, but most of the options displayed consist of check boxes or standard buttons. Furthermore, none of them will open new windows. Regardless of what button you click on, the related settings will be displayed on the main area of the window. When you launch the program, the Source Folder section will be selected by default. Here you can find a list of your computer's local or removable drives and you must select the ones where you want the software to search for duplicates. A specific folder from your hard drive may be added to the list by clicking an Add button, on the lower area of the interface and browsing for it.

The buttons on the lower toolbar will display various options for setting up a search criteria (name, extension, creation date, etc), file or folder filters and more. AllDup lets you create and save profiles as well. Thus, you will not need to make the same settings in the future. Once they are made, you can click the Start Search button on the upper toolbar. The entire interface will be replaced with another one, which will display the results in a tree structure. Similar files will be placed in the same folder and with the aid of toolbar buttons, you can select the first file, all the files except the first, and other combinations. Once selected, you can delete them all with a single click on a button. A file can be previewed on the right side of the tree structure, regardless of its type. Even if it is a video file, it can be previewed with the software's built in player.

If you don't want to delete the selected files, a simple file manager can be brought up by clicking the appropriate button. This will let you rename the files, move them to a different folder and more. All this can be done with the aid of radio buttons, or check boxes.