cytherian
Well-known member
In my endeavor to protect myself from my primary laptop suffering a critical fault or loss, I've kept a second laptop on hand. And in order to prevent it from tumbling too far out of date, I periodically make use of it so that Windows Updates will take place to keep it current.
While my 2nd laptop started with a clone of all user files from my primary laptop, it has deviated now... over the course of a couple of years. Now, the easiest thing I could do would be to perform a complete file list dump sorted by date, then trim off those files in the list that date from the time of copy. And using a little text editor utility that memorizes keystrokes, I could create a macro to then generate a batch file for copying those files to a flash drive.
My problem is that as part of my periodic use, I download files from the Internet. Mostly image and video, but also some documents. Those files are sometimes saved with the current date by the browser, but other times not. So... in essence I may have dozens of files that were obtained after my storage was cloned, with dates that could be earlier than that.
TLDR;
QUESTION: Is there a useful software utility available that does a good job of analyzing two target folders and conducting a comparison for duplicate files, then provide an option for deletion of said duplicate files? And can the filter criteria focus on not just the file name match but also the file size? Also, is there such a utility that does the opposite, finding unique files amidst a large cache of duplicate files?
Addendum: Yes, putting files in the cloud rather than storing locally would be a far more convenient choice of action, but in my frugal manner where I've enjoyed storing files for free I disdain putting large quantities of files in the cloud (I simply put my most critical files there, encrypted)
While my 2nd laptop started with a clone of all user files from my primary laptop, it has deviated now... over the course of a couple of years. Now, the easiest thing I could do would be to perform a complete file list dump sorted by date, then trim off those files in the list that date from the time of copy. And using a little text editor utility that memorizes keystrokes, I could create a macro to then generate a batch file for copying those files to a flash drive.
My problem is that as part of my periodic use, I download files from the Internet. Mostly image and video, but also some documents. Those files are sometimes saved with the current date by the browser, but other times not. So... in essence I may have dozens of files that were obtained after my storage was cloned, with dates that could be earlier than that.
TLDR;
QUESTION: Is there a useful software utility available that does a good job of analyzing two target folders and conducting a comparison for duplicate files, then provide an option for deletion of said duplicate files? And can the filter criteria focus on not just the file name match but also the file size? Also, is there such a utility that does the opposite, finding unique files amidst a large cache of duplicate files?
Addendum: Yes, putting files in the cloud rather than storing locally would be a far more convenient choice of action, but in my frugal manner where I've enjoyed storing files for free I disdain putting large quantities of files in the cloud (I simply put my most critical files there, encrypted)
My Computers
System One System Two
-
- OS
- Windows 11 v. 22H2, Build 22621.2283
- Computer type
- Laptop
- Manufacturer/Model
- HP ZBook Firefly 15 G7
- CPU
- i7-10610U
- Memory
- 32Gb
- Graphics Card(s)
- Intel UHD 1GB
- Monitor(s) Displays
- 0
- Screen Resolution
- 3840x2160
- Hard Drives
- Samsung SSD 1TB
- Mouse
- Logitech MX Master Mouse
-
- Operating System
- Windows 10 v. 22H2, Build 19045.3448
- Computer type
- Laptop
- Manufacturer/Model
- HP / Pavilion 15-ab010nr
- CPU
- AMD A10-8700P, 10 Core 4C+6G, 1800Mhz, 2 cores, 4 logical processors
- Memory
- 16GB
- Graphics card(s)
- AMD Radeon R6 Graphics, 512MB RAM
- Screen Resolution
- 1366x768
- Hard Drives
- Samsung SSD EVO 860 1TB
- Mouse
- Logitech MX Master
- Browser
- Chrome, Opera, Edge
- Antivirus
- Windows Defender
