fdupes

Fdupes

fdupes is a free command line utility for identifying and deleting duplicate files in a directory or folder. It analyzes file contents and sizes to find exact or nearly exact duplicates and offers options to delete or link them to save disk space.
fdupes image
commandline deduplication diskspace files

fdupes: Free Command Line Utility for Duplicate File Identification and Deletion

Identify and delete duplicate files in a directory or folder with fdupes, a free command line utility that analyzes file contents and sizes to find exact or nearly exact duplicates.

What is Fdupes?

fdupes is an open source command line program used for finding duplicate files in specified directories and subdirectories. It works by scanning files and comparing their sizes and content hashes to detect duplicates.

Some key features of fdupes include:

  • Cross platform support - works on Linux, MacOS and Windows
  • Recursively scans directories to find duplicates
  • Provides options to delete duplicates or create hard links to save space
  • Ignores symbolic links by default
  • Can be configured to ignore specific files or directories
  • Lets you preview what would happen before making changes

fdupes is useful for recovering wasted disk space by removing unnecessary copies of files cluttering up your drives. It can help identify duplicate downloads, photos, documents and more. Typical use cases include running fdupes routinely on your Downloads folder or on storage drives to clean them out.

Since it deletes data, users are strongly advised to first run fdupes in test mode and verify the identified duplicates before actually deleting anything.

Fdupes Features

Features

  1. Finds duplicate files based on content, not just file names
  2. Supports many file types including images, documents, audio, video, archives, etc
  3. Scans entire directory trees to find duplicates anywhere
  4. Offers interactive and automatic modes for reviewing and deleting duplicates
  5. Can hard-link duplicates instead of deleting to save space
  6. Runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows

Pricing

  • Open Source

Pros

Free and open source

Very fast and efficient

Powerful command line interface

Easy to integrate into scripts/workflows

Lightweight and low system resource usage

Cons

No graphical user interface

Can only scan one directory at a time

Harder to use for non-technical users

Limited configuration options


The Best Fdupes Alternatives

Top File Management and Duplicate File Finder and other similar apps like Fdupes


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