Duplicate Detective 2 - User Guide

Duplicate Detective 2 scans your Mac for duplicate files and folders. It then displays a list of exact matching duplicates (based on their SHA-1 hash), allowing you to easily select those that you wish to delete in order to free up precious disk space on your Mac.

First Launch and Using the App:

Upon launching the app, you are presented with a first-launch dialog box as follows:

Click on the ‘Add Folders’ button to select folder to scan for duplicates from the Folder Select window that appears. Once you have clicked on a folder, click the ‘Select’ button on the bottom right corner of the Folder Select window.

You can add more folders using the ‘Add Folders’ button or even remove a particular folder from scanning by clicking on it and then pressing the ‘Remove Selected’ button on top.

Once you have selected the folder(s) to be scanned, please click the ‘Next’ button found on the bottom right corner of the app window to scan for duplicates. The scanning for duplicates shall now commence.

Scanning for Duplicate Files:

Upon clicking ‘Next’, the scan commences and you will see the number of files being scanned along with the ‘Scan Log’.

A folder containing a large number of files will take considerably more time to scan than a small folder. As the list is being populated, be assured that the scan is still underway. You can also press the ‘Cancel’ button to cancel an ongoing scan at any time.

Scan Results Deleting Duplicate Files:

Once the scan is complete, you are presented with an overview screen with the option to individually or collectively delete the duplicate files found.

By default, you are presented the ‘All Files’ view, as seen on the top left column. If a scan has found various file types, you can sort scan results by items such as Folders, Images, Documents, Videos, Audios and Others by clicking on any of the items from the left hand column.

You can also use the search bar to individually locate a particular file or kind of file by name, and further sort search results by Size, Type, Name, Count, and Selected, in ascending or descending order.

Each file can be clicked on, and a Preview of the file is presented in the large right hand side column of the app window. You can click the magnifying glass to be taken to the exact location of this file on your Mac. You can select files to delete by ticking on them.

The Auto Select button is an intelligent feature. If you filter by file type or by folder via the left side column on the app, the auto select functionality will allow you to auto select from the files you have filtered.

Upon making your selections by ticking, click the ‘Clean’ button to be presented with a final screen showing your selected duplicate files that are marked for deletion.

Click ‘Confirm Selection’ to continue with the deletion. By proceeding, you will delete these items and send them to your Trash (by default). You can then either Quit the app, continue removing duplicates from your set of results or click ‘New Scan’ at the middle of the left column to start a new scan.

Note: Do not tick all copies of a file for removal unless you wish to totally delete the file from your system. The auto-select button will delete all but one instance of the file (i.e. remove all duplicate copies and just keep the single original version).

Preferences:

When running the app, click on Cmd + , (command and comma) or hit the top left ‘Duplicate Detective 2' text from the menubar (next to the Apple logo), to enter the Preferences menu, as seen below:

In the Preferences menu, you can choose firstly change the visual colour theme of the app.

You can also choose how a duplicate file should be removed. By default, when a scan is done and selected files are marked for deletion, the app deletes them by moving them to the Trash. The Trash can then be emptied out according your needs, or the files can be housed in the Trash. However, you can toggle to select the ‘Permanently Deleted’ option so that when files are deleted via the app, they are not sent to the Trash but are instead permanently and irreversibly deleted.

You can also tell the Auto Select function to select the oldest or newest versions of the same file for removal.

You are presented with a few other options that allow for:

1. The ability to set a minimum file size to look for. Duplicate Detective 2 will only
scan files that size or larger.

2. The ability to ignore certain file extensions. We have listed some by default,
you can choose to add/delete to this list according to your preferences. 

3. The ability to add certain folders listed by you that you do not wish
Duplicate Detective to scan through.