Here’s a genuine, objective CCleaner Duplicate Finder review. Is it safe to delete duplicate files using CCleaner? How to use CCleaner Duplicate Finder? These are among the questions frequently asked by those who want to find and delete duplicate files on their computers. This review covers things that you may want to know about the Duplicate Finder tool in CCleaner. I hope it will be helpful.
Cisdem Duplicate Finder
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CCleaner Duplicate Finder is not an individual app. it’s a tool within the CCleaner app.
Developed by Piriform, CCleaner is a utility designed to clean up unwanted files such as junk files on computer. It’s Windows-only. There are also CCleaner for Mac and CCleaner for Android.
CCleaner’s duplicate file finder tool is built-in and instantly available. Having the essential features that a duplicate file finder should offer, the tool can be used to find and delete duplicate files on a computer.
CCleaner has a standard version and a professional version, and Duplicate Finder is available in both versions. It’s the same case with CCleaner for Mac. But previously, only the professional version of CCleaner for Mac provided Duplicate Finder.
CCleaner pricing:
| Professional version | Standard version | |
|---|---|---|
| CCleaner | $29.95/year | Free |
Yes, it is generally safe. CCleaner is a program specially designed to clean up useless junk files on your PC. Cleaning duplicate files is one of its functions. It does help find duplicates. And there is no bundled app or malware.
However, it is less safe for non-computer literate users. For example, after scanning, it lists all the duplicate files on the computer. But it does not provide built-in preview feature. This can easily lead to accidental deletion of system files.
Finding and deleting duplicate files is an effective way to clean up computers, and that’s the reason why CCleaner builds in this useful feature. This feature allows users to remove duplicate documents, videos, movies, photos or other files on your computer.
Once you have launched the program, you can go to “Tools” and choose “Duplicate Finder”, you will find an informative but neat interface. All the needed icons for customizable settings are arranged in good order, if you need to tweak the settings, just checkmark before the options.
CCleaner allows users to search or find duplicate files in a smart way. Users can search duplicate files that match by name, size, modified date, or content. Even, you can ignore to look through certain files. It’s recommended to ignore Zero-byte files, Read only files, System files, Hidden files to avoid deleting system files and some program files. Even you can specify the min or max file size that you want to ignore to scan.
In addition, during the scanning process, users can include or exclude some drives or folders for searching. For example, if you are quite sure there are lots of duplicates on a drive or in a folder, you can include for scanning, if you don’t want the program look through some files that stored in an important folder, you can exclude for searching.
Yet, CCleaner cannot find all duplicates, there will be some files missing in the duplicates results.
Note: By default, CCleaner doesn’t search subfolders when searching a folder for duplicate files. You can set it to search subfolders if needed.
After the scanning process, CCleaner will find all the duplicates in your selected folder and list them with details, you will know the name, path, size and creation data of these files.
There are three ways to select duplicate files for deletion.
Once you are sure that all unwanted duplicates are selected, click the Delete Selected button.
As you may have noticed, though CCleaner offers different solutions to delete files, it doesn’t do that smart as it does in searching duplicate files or as good as other duplicate file finders. Generally speaking, a convenient duplicate finder will offer different options for users to delete duplicates fast and efficiently, such as select all, deselect all, delete the newest, delete the oldest or customize the selection. And its seems in CCleaner, “choosing one by one, then delete” is the safest way to delete duplicate files, since doesn’t have built-in preview pane. To view duplicates, the only way is right clicking on the files and selecting Open containing folder one by one and then delete those useless files.
There is a button “Restore results” on the top right corner, this feature is only available when you have paid for its Windows bundle, which includes a data recovery software called Recuva. If not, you will be asked to install this program first.
Before to figure out if CCleaner duplicate file finder tool worth a try or not, we need to have a basic understanding about what does it do and how does it help to find and delete duplicate files.
Sometimes, CCleaner just disappoints users. The major complaints about CCleaner duplicate file remover are its failure to find all duplicates, or crash when scanning a large drive/folder.
Then, what to do if CCleaner Duplicate Finder is not working? You may be able to re-start the program if it crashes during scanning process, but there will be no good way to deal with its incompetence to find all expected duplicates. In this case, a professional duplicate finder will be the best solution.
Cisdem Duplicate Finder can be the best CCleaner Duplicate Finder alternative due to its good performance and high ease of use. Below are its main features.
1. Download and install Cisdem Duplicate Finder. Open the software.
2. Unlike CCleaner, this tool allows you to directly drag and drop folders/drives to scan for duplicates instead of scanning the entire computer.
To customize the scan (like ignoring particular extensions, folders, files, or setting the scan method, remove method, etc.), click the settings icon in the top right corner.
3. Click Scan.
4. View the found duplicate files in the results window. You can preview duplicate files side by side, which is especially useful for users who have large number of duplicate images. You can also switch to the Info preview mode in the upper right corner to view the file name, size, location, resolution and other details of duplicates.
5. The software has automatically selected all duplicates for removal. Or, you can choose a desired selection rule to help you mass select. These user-friendly features greatly save users’ time and make the task of eliminating duplicate files on PC more efficient.
6. Click Delete to remove all selected duplicates.
As you can see, this alternative is more powerful and easier to use than CCleaner Duplicate Finder.
To summarize, CCleaner Duplicate Finder is a good choice for users who want to speed up computer, recover spaces by cleaning up temporary files, junk files, redundant files, etc. CCleaner itself is not exclusively designed to handle duplicate files. For many of its users, the Duplicate Finder tool may be a nice little cherry on the top feature. For active computer users who may have a large amount of duplicate files on their computers, the best solution to get rid of the unwanted duplicates is to use professional duplicate file finder software due to reliable performance, high accuracy, high speed and great customization.
Connie has been writing for Mac productivity and utility apps since 2009. Each review and solution is based on her practical tests, she is aways energetic and trustworthy in this field.
