Monday 14 January 2013

FREEDOM FROM DUPLICATE FILES

By Ishant Gupta
Digital storage is very cheap because of which some people fill up their phones and computers with duplicate files of songs, photos, Emails etc.
Storing many duplicate files on your computer can create problems for you. Let us see how to prevent ourselves from such problems.

EMAILS
Outlook
‘Outlook duplicate items remover’ is a small utility. You can download this from www.vaita.com. This is an all in one tool for outlook. This not only searches for duplicate emails, but also goes one step ahead in identifying duplicate contacts, calendars, tasks and notes. You cannot immediately delete the duplicate files. The utility service creates a separate folder to store the duplicate files, checks them thoroughly and then deletes them.
Thunderbird
‘Remove Duplicate files’ is a free add on thunderbird. This scans all your folders. This scans at the speed of 1000 messages per second. You can set it to either show you the duplicate files or directly delete them. While deleting it gives you an opportunity to select read/unread mails, small/big mails or first/last mails. This makes it quite easy for you.
Online Emails
If you are using an online email client like Gmail or Yahoo, then the easiest way to search for duplicates is to set up IMAP with a local Email client (like Thunderbird or outlook). With the help of IMAP your online Emails will get synchronized with your PC. After this you can use ‘Outlook Duplicate items remover’ for outlook or ‘Remove Duplicate Files’ for thunderbird to delete the duplicate files.

FILES AND FOLDERS
Windows
You will first need to download a free application ‘search my files’ from the website www.nirsoft.net. This is a portable application. You can copy this in a USB flash drive and use it on any Windows PC. The application ‘search my files’ is considered as a replacement for Windows search bar. This provides good features on a simple interface. With the help of this you can also decide the type of files you would like to search. This can search in special folders also. After scanning, this shows duplicate files in another window. You can either delete the duplicate files or just view them.It is very easy to use this application.
Mac
The finder window of Mac OSX, helps you to search for files under different headings. It also allows you to delete them. First of all open the finder window and type any word on the search box. Once you get the result, you can arrange the file in any order. You can arrange similar files under one name. You can then easily see the duplicates and delete them. If you like you can also download the free ‘Duplicate file searcher’. For this you will need to go to the following website www.duplicatefilessearcher.net. This website presents you with advanced search options. Using the graphical user interface of this application, you can identify the duplicate files and delete them quickly.

CONTACTS
If you wish to search for duplicate contacts on your Gmail account, click on the triangular icon on the left side of the Gmail account page near the Gmail logo. Select the contacts section and then click on the ‘more’ option.On doing this you will get a pop up that says ‘find and merge duplicates’. Check your contacts before merging them. If you have an Android device that does not synchronize contacts with Gmail, then you will need to install a free app called ‘contact remover’.

MUSIC
Itune contains a built in duplicate finder. Open the music library on your Itune and click on the file menu on the top bar. Then click on the ‘display duplicates’ option. Itunes will show the duplicates present in the library. Select the duplicates and delete them from the library or the hard drive. You can also use the music edition application ‘Dupeguru’. To download this you will need to go to www.hardcoded.net. This application scans your folder. After scanning it displays your music files according to the type and duration. It also tells the percentage similarity in two songs. After this you can either delete the files or move them to another folder. This is available on Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. The free version of this application allows you to delete 10 songs in a single instant.

PHOTO
If you are a fan of digital photography, you must have gathered a number of duplicate photographs. You can search for similar photos and delete them. Similar photos clicked on the burst mode of your camera can also be deleted by this. You will have to use the Vizipics feature of Windows. You can download this from www.visipics.info. Its interface is very easy to use. This works with multiple formats. This can also compare photos in different formats and resolutions. With the help of this feature you can delete the duplicates, move them to another folder or rename them. You can also download Picasa from Google. Once you import all the images from Picasa, go to the ‘experimental option’ in tools. Then go to click on the ‘show duplicates’ option. This will show all the duplicate files in the library.

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