Easy Duplicate Finder, founded in 2007, is a simple tool for finding and deleting duplicate files on your PC or Mac. Suppose you’re running out of space on your harddrive and you suspect you have a ton of duplicate files in different places — a normal Windows search, for example, won’t be of much use. A tool like Easy Duplicate Finder is designed to find all duplicate files in one click and allow you to remove them all (if you wish) in just a couple of clicks.
Installing Easy Duplicate Finder
Go to easyduplicatefinder.com and follow the download instructions, or use the direct download link at https://www.easyduplicatefinder.com/files/edf7setup.exe. This file is around 17MB at the time of writing.
The install process is then extremely simple. On my laptop, it took less than a minute to install, and it’s a completely standard install process:
After Easy Duplicate Finder has installed, you’ll see a dashboard like this:
Using Easy Duplicate Finder
First, let’s take a look at how Easy Duplicate Finder can scan, and how you can customize what it looks for (if you’re looking for something specific). As you can see in the screenshot above, one way to customize a scan is to have a minimum and/or maximum file size. You can also scan by file type:
It’s also possible to change how Easy Duplicate Finder identifies duplicates, and even where it scans:
The default method is SHA256 Checksum + FileSize, which guarantees two files are identical (a SHA256 Checksum is often given so you can ensure a file you have is the right file, and hasn’t been modified in any way). But you can also do a direct Byte-by-Byte comparison, or if you’re scanning a huge number of files and just it done as quickly as possible, you can choose to identify duplicates just by the filename.
You can also use Easy Duplicate Finder to search for duplicates in Google Drive (it’ll of course come up with a window for you to login to Google and authenticate it), or search for duplicates in Outlook Mail (for this you don’t need to give it your login info for your Outlook account, just drop an Outlook folder into the software).
If you click the three lines at the top right of Easy Duplicate Finder, you can also customize the scan settings as follows:
All in all, Easy Duplicate Finder gives you a good amount of options for how you want to run scans to find duplicate files.
Running a scan with Easy Duplicate Finder
Once you’ve configured your scan and told Easy Duplicate Finder what you want it to scan, hit the big green “START SCAN” button and you’ll be taken to step 2:
For this test I just scanned a small part of my computer (the folder I use to store images and notes for my software reviews on OutwitTrade.com), and it was completed almost instantly. As you can see, Easy Duplicate Finder shows you very clearly how many duplicates it’s found and how much space they’re taking up.
Click the “GO FIX THEM!” button to move to step 3…
Here you get a very handy visual representation of what types of files most of your duplicates comprise of, along with of course a list of all the duplicates. By default, as in the screenshot above, Easy Duplicate Finder will select all duplicates and then let you remove them with 1 click by clicking the rubbish bin icon. But there’s also a lot of other options for how you select what items you want to keep, if you click the green circle with a pencil icon in it:
You’ll probably just want to keep this as “Select all duplicates.”
How good is Easy Duplicate Finder? Is it worth paying for?
(WARNING: You’ll see the word “duplicate” a heck of a lot in this section)
Easy Duplicate Finder is good software that does what it advertises. However, to actually get it to delete your duplicate files — not just scan for them — you’ll need to pay for it. The free version lets you delete just 10 duplicate files, which probably won’t be sufficient for you. The upgraded version that’ll let you delete unlimited duplicate files currently costs $39.95 for 1 license. That may be well worth the time it’ll save you deleting your duplicate files manually, but Easy Duplicate Finder is also not the only tool available for deleting duplicate files. There’s also the following:
- Duplicate File Finder
- Fast Duplicate File Finder
- Duplicate Cleaner
- Gemini
- CCleaner
How do these compare to Easy Duplicate Finder?
Easy Duplicate Finder vs Duplicate File Finder: Duplicate File Finder by Ashisoft is a little more expensive at $49.95 for a one-off license (or $35.40 yearly), but performs similarly to Easy Duplicate Finder and includes a duplicate finder for Google Drive as well (and even Dropbox which Easy Duplicate Finder lacks). Has been around for a very long time, like Easy Duplicate Finder.
Easy Duplicate Finder vs Fast Duplicate File Finder: Fast Duplicate File Finder by MindGems is also extremely well established with a good reputation, and it works. It costs the same as Easy Duplicate Finder but does not require you to pay for it to actually delete files, unlike Easy Duplicate Finder, and you can also use it with the command line (in the Pro version). The disadvantage is it doesn’t check for duplicates with outside services or software (Google Drive, Dropbox or anything else).
Easy Duplicate Finder vs Duplicate Cleaner: Also a well known and effective duplicate file finder, but like Fast Duplicate File Finder, it doesn’t search outside services like Google Drive.
Easy Duplicate Finder vs Gemini 2: Gemini 2 is Mac only, but costs just half of Easy Duplicate Finder at $19.95.
Easy Duplicate Finder vs CCleaner: CCleaner is primarily a system cleaner and optimizer first, not primarily a duplicate file finder (that’s just one of its features). Don’t bother with it if you’re just looking for a duplicate file finder, as it charges a yearly license only.
The bottom line (in my opinion) is that Easy Duplicate Finder compares reasonably to its competition, and is therefore worth getting over them if you’ve read this far and have a serious duplicate file problem.
