It’s Friday and I’m on a mission. Every night this week I’ve been scouring through iPhoto on my Mac looking for duplicate or nearly duplicate photos.
That kind of messy photo collection is what happens when you don’t edit or prune in iPhoto. For a year. Or, two.
There are plenty of good reasons to get rid of duplicate photos on your Mac. Is there a compelling reason to get rid of other duplicate files?
I’m not so sure. So, I dug around and found a few inexpensive Mac apps that claim to do the same thing. Find and delete duplicate files on a Mac.
Other than iPhoto and an occasional song in iTunes, I wasn’t even aware that duplicates are a problem. That must be the case, though, because there are so many de-duplicator apps available.
First on my list of test apps was Decloner, a straightforward, easy-to-setup Mac app that comes with plenty of features to justify a rather nominal price tag.
Decloner scans specific folders on your Mac and gives you a list of duplicate files. It’s that simple.
Not only does Decloner check different Mac folders, it also scans through iPhoto’s Library for duplicates.
It’s fast. And it lists each file in the Decloner window so you can see exactly where the file is located, size of file, and other information– before you delete it.
QuickLook lets you check the file’s details, and Decloner automatically selects what it thinks are duplicate files. But it doesn’t remove them. Uh uh. Decloner doesn’t delete. But it moves files to the Trash so the onus is yours.
Decloner also ensures that there is at least one file of a duplicate that remains on your Mac.
It found plenty of duplicates in iPhoto, and a few other duplicate files leftover by various Mac apps. For those apps still on my Mac, I decided not to delete their duplicates.
I like it. It was fast and easy. And it gave me a sense of satisfaction about keeping a neat and tidy Mac. Other than iPhoto and iTunes, I can’t imagine there’s much of an issue with duplicate files on a Mac.
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