Review

Review: Auslogics Duplicate File Finder frees up hard drive space quickly

Contributor, PCWorld |

At a Glance

  • Generic Company Place Holder Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

Duplicate file finders are a great way to free up precious hard drive space. Scanning your drive by file name, date, and content, these tools can point out files which appear more than once on your hard drive, thus helping you get rid of them swiftly. Sounds useful? Auslogics Duplicate File Finder is a quick, simple, and free option.

Select folders to scan on the left, and Duplicate File Finder will lead the way in 4 steps.

Duplicate File Finder needs administrator permissions to work, and won't run if those permissions are not provided. It's also for personal use only. This utility features a simple, wizard-like interface, which takes you through the scanning process step by step. Choosing which folder or folders to scan is a bit tedious, as Duplicate File Finder doesn't offer drag-and-drop abilities; once you choose your folders, however, your hard work is over.

On the next screens you can filter the scan by file type and file size, decide whether ADFF takes note of file dates and file names, and determine the default action for duplicate files. The scanning process itself is very short: The program scanned my entire hard drive  in 10 minutes, finding over 2GB of duplicates.

Select the duplicate files you want to remove, and choose how you wish to delete them.

Unlike paid counterparts such as WebMinds' Easy Duplicate Finder, Auslogics's tool offers only three solutions for your duplicates: delete to recycle bin, delete permanently, and delete to the Auslogics rescue center. The rescue center is a very useful feature, and if you choose to use it, lets you recover and restore any changes you made using the program. This way, you never have to worry about losing important files.

Use the Rescue Center to restore files if you change your mind.

If you're overwhelmed by duplicates, Duplicate File Finder doesn't offer much help. It can, however, select one or all duplicates in each group for you, and even invert this selection with just one click.  Auslogics Duplicate File Finder is a very simple application with very simple option, but with its price tag marked "free," it's an excellent option if you need to free up some space on a home computer quickly.

Note: The "Try it for free" button on the Product Information page will download the software to your system.When installing Duplicate File Finder, it will also install the Auslogics toolbar and turn Ask into your default browser homepage. You can opt out of these options during the installation.

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At a Glance

  • Auslogics Duplicate File Finder provides a simple and easy way to get rid of duplicate files. It's not the most full-featured program of its type, but it's as good as any of the freebies.

    Pros

    • Free to use
    • Scans very quickly and finds a fair amount of duplicates
    • Rescue center lets you restore deleted files

    Cons

    • Doesn't find as many duplicates as others
    • Folder selection is inconvenient
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