[howto guides] 3 Powerful Tools to Help you Get Rid of Duplicate Files on your Hard Drive, Quick and Easy

It is really annoying sometimes when your PC seems to be slower than before because your hard drive memory is close to being full. Far more worst, you don't know how it gotten that big as the last time you've checked, you did not use up that much space for your files.

One reason why your hard drive has lots of files on it is because maybe, just maybe, you have lots of duplicate files. These files are redundant and without of any use. Instead of helping they just make your hard drive low in space. So, you better get rid of this duplicates files right away.

How can I do it? Normally you have to find the duplicate files one by one. You need to go to your hard drive and scan it manually and depict the files that are redundant...

So, there you have it... That's how to get rid of the duplicate files on your hard drive..... Just kidding!

There's an easier way to do it.... Check out below some of the powerful tools use to eradicate duplicate files within minutes...

DoubleKiller

DoubleKiller is an all-purpose duplicate finder that can scan folders, your whole drive, and even other PCs on your local network. It compares file name, size, modification date, and even content (presumably by hashing a file's contents). The program also lets you exclude files by name, size, or type (XLS, MP4, etc.).

DoubleKiller has a lot of great features, but the interface may not be as straightforward as it could be. If you find yourself confused, start by adding some folders to scan under the Options tab then, go back to the DoubleKiller tab and click Run. Once it's done you can decide to delete your duplicates or move them to another location.

dupeGuru Picture Edition

As its name suggests, dupeGuru Picture Edition is all about finding doubles in your image folders. Pictures can be one of the top sources of duplicates for many people, especially as we migrate to new PCs, restore data from back-ups, and keep pictures in different cloud services like Dropbox, Google+, and OneDrive.

DupeGuru PE is very easy to use. All you get is a simple window with options to add folders for scanning. When you're ready, just hit Scan and let the program do its magic, then decide what to keep once it's done.

Winmerge

This is a seriously useful tool if you have a lot of documents or text files kicking around and need to pare them down. Winmerge lets you compare two versions of a document (or an entire directory) and then view the actual differences between them on screen. You can then choose to merge the text into one preferred document.

Unlike the other tools in this article, Winmerge isn't about searching your hard drive for duplicate files. Instead, you have to know that the two files or directories you're comparing are similar or earlier versions of each other.

The big advantage is that you can see the differences and then easily bring your files together into one canonical version. At first glance, you may find Winmerge's interface a little overwhelming, but don't be intimidated. The icons are designed to offer visual cues to help you understand how everything works.

Credits: Special thanks to pcworld.com (especially to Ian Paul) for sharing this post on their blog.

Posted by Hodie J