How To Find Duplicate Files On Mac Free

While most Macs have a decent amount of storage space, it’s not unlimited. So, you have to be smart about what you’re saving. And duplicate files are only a waste of space. But finding and deleting those duplicates requires an extreme amount of patience or an app that will find those duplicates for you.

Keep reading and you’ll learn how to clean your Mac of duplicates both with an app and manually. The methods you’ll be reading about include:

Click on “File” in the menu bar of your Mac desktop. Now, choose “New Smart Folder” from the dropdown menu. This will open a window on your screen. Click on the “+” icon located next to the “Save” option as shown in the screenshot below. Choose the “Kind” drop-down menu and select a file type you want to narrow the search. Cleaner One Pro helps you visualize, manage, and free up storage space in just one click. This powerful Mac cleaner helps you find & clean temporary files and hidden leftover instantly. Working as a smart duplicate files finder for Mac, it helps you retrieve and delete duplicate files. Verdict: Duplicate File Finder lets you get more free disk space by removing unnecessary identical or similar files and folders from your Mac. It works with a variety of file formats and has a really fast scanning algorithm to find matches. You can even scan different folders at a time.

Duplicate Cleaner Free. Duplicate Cleaner by DigitalVolcano Software is the leading program for finding and removing duplicate files on your Windows PC. Documents, pictures, music and more - this app will find it all. This free version has a subset of features found in it's big brother, Duplicate Cleaner Pro. Get more free disk space by removing unnecessary duplicate files and folders from your Mac. Remove duplicate files on any mounted disk or folder. Use Duplicate File Finder FREE to find and remove duplicate files. Get the PRO version to delete duplicate folders, merge similar folders, mass select duplicates and more.

  • Duplicate file finder app
  • Terminal commands
  • Smart folders in Finder

Why is my Mac duplicating files?

There are a ton of reasons your Mac could be loaded with duplicate files. Maybe you’ve imported the same photos from your camera multiple times and didn’t realize it. Or you couldn’t find a file you were sent, so you just re-downloaded it. Duplicates are a normal part of using a computer, which is why you should regularly check and clean your Mac for duplicate files.

How to find duplicate files on Mac

Over time your Mac is going to fill up and run out of storage space. And most likely, duplicates that take up a good amount of your valuable space. Sure, you can try to sort through all of your files, searching for those duplicate documents, photos, and music files. But if your hard drive is already full, that means you’ve got a lot of files to sift through. And it’s going to take you a very long time to go through them one-by-one.

1. Delete duplicate files with Gemini 2

There are a ton of duplicate finder tools out there, but we’ll take Gemini 2 as an example, because we’re 100% sure it works. Once you have Gemini 2 downloaded and installed, just follow these steps to scan all of the folders on your Mac:

  1. Download, install and open Gemini 2.
  2. Click the + > Choose Customer Folder...
  3. Then, select your hard drive. Unless you’ve renamed it, it’s called Macintosh HD.
  4. Click Scan for Duplicates.

When the scan is over (which doesn’t take long), you get two options: Review Results and Smart Cleanup.

Smart Cleanup means you’ll automatically delete all of the files Gemini 2 thinks are duplicates, leaving the originals in place. While Review Results will allow you to do exactly what it suggests. You’ll be able to see all of your files and select which ones you want to delete.

That’s pretty much all there is to it. Gemini 2 will delete duplicate files in your Photos, Downloads, Mail Downloads, iTunes, and all the other locations on your disk. It’s by far, the easiest and fastest way to find and delete all of the duplicates on your Mac.

2. Find duplicate files with a Terminal

Before you jump into Terminal headfirst, you should only do it if you're comfortable and know your way around Terminal. It’s a powerful tool that can mess up a lot if you don’t know what you’re doing. We’ve tested the steps below and nothing bad happened, but you should still be careful and double check everything you type into the command line.

So, here’s how you search for duplicate files with Terminal:

  1. In Finder, go to Applications > Utilities > Terminal to open it.
  2. Navigate to the folder you want to scan with the cd command. For example, if you want to scan Downloads, type in cd ~/Downloads and hit Enter.
  3. Copy and paste this command:

find . -size 20 ! -type d -exec cksum {} ; | sort | tee /tmp/f.tmp | cut -f 1,2 -d ‘ ‘ | uniq -d | grep -hif – /tmp/f.tmp > duplicates.txt and hit Enter.

This will create a text file in the folder you’ve specified, with a list of your duplicates inside. But, there are two things you should keep in mind:

  • This terminal command overlooks a lot of duplicates.
  • You’ll still need to locate those duplicate files and sift through them to separate the copies from the originals.

So, this command is more like a crystal ball: it gives you hints, but you still have to go and do the sorting and deleting manually. Which brings us to another option, that will do a little more of the work for you.

Sometimes files won’t be flagged as duplicates because they have slightly different file names. But every file has what’s called an md5 hash, which is a unique identifier that stays with the file. So even if you move or rename a file, it’s md5 hash will remain the same.

Similar to the Terminal command above, you can generate a list that shows the md5 tag to verify all of the duplicates in a particular folder. Follow the steps below to create that list.

  1. Open Terminal from the Utilities folder.
  2. For this example, we’ll scan the Documents folder. Type into the Terminal window: ~/Documents.
  3. Copy and paste this code: find ./ -type f -exec md5 {} ; | awk -F '=' '{print $2 't' $1}' | sort | tee duplicates.txt and then hit enter.
  4. Then, open a Finder window and navigate to your Documents folder.
  5. Open the Documents.txt file.

This generates a list of all of the files in the folder you’ve specified, but you’ll at least be able to see the md5 tags to know which files are copies of each other.

3. Find duplicate files on Mac using Smart folders

The truth is duplicate files can live anywhere on your hard drive, which makes finding them that much trickier. But thanks to a feature in Finder called Smart Folders, you can narrow your search down based on specific criteria. Say you want to search all of the documents on your Mac, then you’d follow these steps:

  1. In a new Finder window, click File > New Smart Folder and make sure This Mac is selected.
  2. In the top-right corner, click +.
  3. From the first drop-down menu, select Kind and in the second drop-down, choose Documents. Then, click Save.
  4. A pop-up window will come up, letting you name the folder and choose where to save the Smart Folder.
  5. From there, you can see all of your documents. Click to order the files by either name, size, or date created to help you quickly spot duplicates.
  6. Select the files you want to delete.
  7. Right-click (or hold down Command and click) and then click Move to Trash.

How to locate duplicate files using Smart Folders

While using Smart Folders is a lot faster than hunting through your entire hard drive for duplicate files, it still requires a bit of patience. Manually going through each of your files one-by-one can take some time, even after you’ve narrowed them down.

4. Find duplicate pictures in your Photos library

You move a bunch of new photos onto your Mac, import them into Photos, and start sorting them out. What you probably don’t know is that all of those pics now exist in two copies: one in the initial folder (say, Documents), and one in Home > Pictures > Photos Library. So, the best thing to do is to use the import features in either iPhoto or Photos.

Now, how do you find these duplicate photos and get rid of them? Depends on how much you rely on Photos for viewing and organizing your pics. If you never liked the app anyway and have backups of all pics in other folders, just go ahead and empty the Photos library. Remember two things here, though:

  • Delete your pics in Photos only when you’re 100% sure you have copies of them in another folder.
  • When you delete duplicate files in Photos, they are not removed — just moved to a Recently Deleted folder. Meaning they’re still taking up storage space. So, don’t forget to empty your Recently Deleted folder too.

Find similar photos in Photos

If you are using Photos to store and organize your pictures, keep in mind that it only displays files stored in Home > Pictures > Photos Library. So, if your pics are duplicated, you’ll have to remove the copies that are stored elsewhere. Here’s how you can find them:

  1. In Photos, open the Photos tab to see all your pics sorted by date.
  2. In Finder, open All My Files to view all your pics in bulk, not in a dozen individual folders.
  3. Sort the files by Date Created, so that your pics in Finder are listed more or less in the order they’re listed in Photos.
  4. Now comes the tedious part. Take a group of pics in Photos, created within the same day — say, April 17, 2015. Go to Finder, spot the 2015 section, and find that identical group of pics (they will be located together, so you just need to look carefully).

Repeat step 4 for all the pictures you have in your Photos library. That way, you’ll find and remove the duplicate photos that are stored in other locations, and keep only the pics in your Photos library.

You’ll quickly see how long it will take you to find and delete your photos manually. But if you used an app like Gemini 2, it can do most of the heavy lifting for you. Plus, you’re able to review all of the duplicates Gemini finds or just delete them all with one click. The best part is you can download Gemini 2 for free and see how it works.

How To Find Duplicate Files On Mac Free Online


5. How to find duplicates in Mail Downloads

Here’s a common scenario: a colleague emails you a document, and you open the attachment in Mail to take a look at it. You’re going to need this file, so you download it onto your Mac for safe keeping. No duplicates, nothing to talk about here. Right?

Duplicate

Not exactly. See, the Mail app has quietly downloaded this attachment the moment you opened it, and stashed it in its very own downloads folder. So, now you have two copies of the same file on your Mac.

The Mail Downloads folder is not particularly easy to find. You really have to know where to look to get to it. Follow these steps to access it:

  1. Open Finder.
  2. In the Menu bar, click Go > Go to Folder…
  3. Type this address:

~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail Downloads and hit Go.

This will open a new Finder window where all of your Mail attachments live. The good news here is that there’s nothing to compare or sort. These files are automatically downloaded to make it faster to open the next time you need them. But all the attachments still live on your email server and can be re-downloaded at any time. Meaning, if there’s nothing you would miss, you could empty this entire folder.

How to find duplicate files in specific folders

You can also use Smart Folders to look for duplicates within specific folders. This is particularly helpful in instances when you have multiple folders in a folder. To set up a Smart Folder that searches a specific folder:

  1. Go to the folder you want to search in Finder and click File > New Smart Folder.
  2. In the Search bar at the top of the window, click the folder name.
  3. Click + in the top-right corner.
  4. Set your other search criteria and click Save.
  5. Then, name your Smart Folder and choose where to save it.
  6. Organize your files by name, size, or date created to help you see the duplicates.
  7. Select the files you want to delete and drag them to your Trash.

How to find duplicates of specific file types

Because you set the search criteria with each Smart Folder, that means you can search for specific types of files or files of a certain size. To create a Smart Folder for a certain type of file, like pictures, you can open a new Finder window and follow these steps:

  1. Click File > New Smart Folder.
  2. Then, in the top-right corner, click +.
  3. From the first drop-down menu, select Kind.
  4. Choose Image from the second drop-down.
  5. Click Save.
  6. Then, give your Smart Folder a name and choose where you want to save it.
  7. After it’s saved, you can select the duplicate files, right-click or command-click, and click Move to Trash.

How to find duplicates by file sizes

If you want to only search for files by their size, which is particularly helpful to get rid of larger duplicates, do the following:

  1. Open a Finder window.
  2. In the top right, click +.
  3. Click on the first drop-down to choose File Size. If you don’t see it, click Other… and then search for size, to add it to the menu.
  4. Set your file size criteria.
  5. Then you can click Save, name your folder and choose where it’s saved.
  6. Once your Smart Folder is created, you can select the duplicates, right-click or command-click, and then click Move to Trash.

Is There A Way To Find Duplicate Files On My Mac

While Smart Folders are extremely helpful in finding and deleting duplicates on your Mac, it still requires you do a lot of it manually. Which leaves room for error and not to mention how much time it will take you to remove files one at a time.

The alternative to deleting duplicates manually is to use an app Gemini 2. It quickly scans your entire hard drive or individual folders, presenting you with the duplicate files to review. Or you can even choose to use the Smart Cleanup feature, which will automatically delete duplicates and leave the original files in their place.

Hopefully, this article helps you clean up your Mac and remove those sneaky duplicate files that are eating up all of your storage space.

The dreaded “running low on storage” error message — we all hate it. When your Mac starts to run out of space, one of the most effective ways to clean it up is to find any duplicate files you can delete. Photos, videos, songs, email attachments, old documents — anything that's easy to download and forget about.

Duplicate files on your Mac are largely useless, and managing them is important. The more duplicate files there are on Mac, the less efficient it is because duplicates can affect Mac’s resources and performance.

Many users just don't think to find duplicate files on their Mac, much less delete duplicate files when they're aware of them. There are a few really good ways to remove duplicate files on your Mac; we'll show you the absolute best methods here.

Duplicate file finder for Mac

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Best ways to remove duplicates on your Mac

Having duplicate files on your Mac may not be your fault. There are times when you duplicate a file to alter it, but never get around to those changes. You may also import images you already have in your Photos app, or have multiple video or audio files lurking.

Sometimes, apps download multiple files or folders they need to operate properly. You can dig through your file system and manually delete files, but that's a tedious process.

Find duplicates manually

You can, of course, just go through every folder, hidden or not, and delete the files that you remember seeing somewhere else. But how long would that take you? Your files love to spread throughout multiple destinations, and some apps like iTunes or Photos keep their own libraries of your files, which are hard to get to.

Smart Folders can help. Your Mac lets you create Smart Folders inside Finder. These folders have automated actions to make finding file types easier.

Here's how to use Smart Folders on Mac:

  1. Open Finder
  2. From the menu bar, select “File”
  3. Select “New Smart Folder”
  4. In the finder window, choose “Kind”
  5. Next to “Kind,” select the file type you want to isolate for the smart folder

This is Apple's imperfect method; it can help you find all types of files, but there's no automation for duplicates in Smart Folders. If you have multiple versions of a presentation, for example, Smart Folders can help you find all of your presentations, no matter where they're stored on your Mac. You can delete them in the Smart Folder, too, and those files will be placed in Trash.

Photos

You can also use Smart Folders to find duplicate images. Simply choose Kind > Image > and the type of image you want to find a duplicate of.

Downloads

Finder has a search field that can be handy for finding duplicate files. To use it for your Downloads folder, open Finder, and make sure you have the “Downloads” folder selected from the menu on the left side of the window. In the search bar on the top right, enter the name of a file you want to find a duplicate of.

Mail downloads

Your mail downloads have a home on your Mac. Again, this is likely your downloads folder; to make sure, go to your mail app, select its name in the menu bar, and choose “Preferences.” In its preferences menu, it allows you to designate where you want your downloads to go.

All you have to do from there is search the folder your mail downloads go to for duplicate files as noted above.

How to find duplicate files with a Terminal command

Before you start using Terminal, know this: any changes you make to Terminal and not reversible, and could have lasting effects on your Mac. Be careful!

To find duplicate files on Mac using Terminal, follow these steps:

  1. Open Terminal on your Mac
  2. Use the cd command to change directories.
    Note: If you have to change directories multiple times – say if you want to search a folder deeper in your file hierarchy – simply use the cd command multiple times until you reach your destination
  3. Enter this command: find . -size 20 ! -type d -exec cksum {} ; | sort | tee /tmp/f.tmp | cut -f 1,2 -d ' ' | uniq -d | grep -hif – /tmp/f.tmp > duplicates.txt
  4. Press 'Enter' on your Mac keyboard

This creates a text file of all your duplicate files in the folder you're searching for – but doesn't delete them! You still have to go looking for those files.

Get rid of duplicate files and folders with duplicate files finders

Just as with most maintenance tasks, finding duplicates has been automated for quite some time now. Apps like Gemini and Disk Drill are excellent duplicate file finder apps, able to scan your computer and clear out the excess completely in minutes.

Gemini is beyond easy to use. It's able to swiftly inspect your Mac, sort all the results by type or date, and even find similar files beyond just duplicates.

When you launch the Gemini app, it will prompt you to add a folder to scan. This can be any folder on your Mac, including common folders like your Home folder, Pictures folder, and Music folder, where your iTunes library lives. You can also drag and drop folders onto the Gemini window.

After Gemini finishes the scan, it'll show you how many duplicates it found and recommend which ones to automatically delete. You can click the Smart Cleanup button to delete the files that Gemini suggests or click Review Results to see all the duplicate files and make your own decisions.

The Review Results window contains everything you need to decide, too. For each duplicate file, you can see where each version lives on your hard drive when it was last modified, how large the file is, and of course preview it. The sidebar also distinguishes exact duplicates from files that are just very similar. You can sort any list by size or file type, and then check the boxes for any files you are comfortable deleting.

To see everything you have selected for deletion so far (including the choices Gemini made on your behalf), just click the Selected section in the left-hand sidebar. And when you're finished making selections, just click the Smart Cleanup button in the bottom-right and that's it! Gemini deletes your duplicate files and you're all done.

Disk Drill has similar functionality, and some extra features. The tool can recover deleted files that haven't been overwritten yet, salvage files from a corrupted external hard drive or SD card, and check the health of your main hard drive. Pretty useful, we think.

When you launch the app, click the Find Duplicates feature in the toolbar and add a folder for the app to scan. Your Home folder is a good place to start.

After the scan, Disk Drill will show all the duplicate files it has found. You can click the arrow next to any to see all the locations on your hard drive where that file was found and choose the one to delete. You can click a little magnifying glass icon to open the file's location in the Finder or click the eyeball to preview the file with Quick Look.

The app doesn't automatically select any files to delete, but has a few handy features. The default view puts the largest files on top of the list, but you can re-sort that however, you like. If you select all versions of the same file to delete, Disk Drill highlights that file name in red as an extra visual warning that you're about to delete them all.

Once you've made all your selections, just click the Remove button at the top-right of the window, confirm that you're really deleting them, and, poof, they're gone.

Conclusion

Finding duplicate files on your Mac can be tedious without great apps. That's likely why your memory is filled with duplicate files. It's also why most of us don't bother finding the duplicates to delete!

Remove Duplicate Files On Mac

Gemini and Disk Drill making finding duplicate files really simple. Both have awesome features, and make finding and deleting duplicate files a snap.

All these apps are also part of the Setapp collection. In fact, there are about 200+ more useful apps for your Mac. And with a free trial, you can try these tips and free up space on our dime.

How To Find Duplicate Files On Mac Free App

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Find And Free Remove Duplicate Files On Mac