How to find duplicate files across multiple drives or folders easily

This guide will show you how to find duplicate files across multiple drives or folders on Mac and Windows. Removing duplicate files can help you free up storage space. Let’s check out how to do this quickly and easily.

Find duplicate files across multiple drives on Mac

Mac users can use Cisdem Duplicate Finder to effortlessly get the job done. Cisdem Duplicate Finder lets you:

• find duplicate files on Mac’s internal drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, etc.
• find duplicate files in a single folder, or volume or drive.
• find duplicate files between two drives or folders.
• find duplicate files across multiple drives or folders.
• and more…

The app can be used to detect and delete duplicate photos, videos, audios, documents, archives, packages, etc.

Step 1. Download Cisdem Duplicate Finder from the official download link and install it. It supports macOS 10.10 and later such as Catalina. Open the app.

Step 2. To find duplicate files across multiple drives, add them for scan. There are two methods to add drives and folders.

• Click the plus icon + and select folders, volumes or drives to add.
• Drag them into the middle of the interface (where the big arrow icon displays).

Click Scan.

Note: Don’t use the second method with default folders like Desktop, Documents and Downloads. It may cause them to become missing from the sidebar in Finder.

Step 3. Once the scan is finished, you will be provided with the scan results, i.e. the detected duplicate files. You can find all of them under the All tab. You can also choose to view them by file type such as Images, Music and Videos.

Duplicates are listed on a list on the left side of the interface. They appear in groups. In each group of duplicate files, there is a file that you want to keep. Here I will refer to it as the original file, regardless of whether it’s actually the original one or not. The rest file(s) will be the unwanted one, which you need to remove.

You can easily sort the scan results and search among them if needed.

There are three preview modes. The first mode lets you conveniently preview and compare images side by side. The second mode can be used to preview videos, songs, PDFs and more. With the third mode, you can check out file information.

Step 4. Now you find the duplicate files across multiple drives. It’s time to select unwanted files to delete. The app automatically selects them for you. You can also select them yourself. There are multiple selection rules available. If needed, choose a desired rule to apply the selection.

Note: If you choose Select by Priority, you need to set a priority in settings in advance, before you click the Scan button in Step 2.

Step 5. Click Delete and confirm the deletion by clicking Yes.

Tip

Let’s talk about the selection rule Select by Priority. The rule can be used when you find and delete duplicate files between two or more locations. Here’s a scenario. There are duplicates between Drive A and Drive B. You want to make sure that the original (explained in Step 3) files are kept on Drive B. And the rest will be selected and deleted. In this case, the said rule can help. Below is how to do it.

In the first interface (i.e. the scan interface), click the settings icon in the top right corner. In the settings window, choose the Selection tab.

From the available options, choose Select duplicates for removal from prioritized location. Click the plus icon + to add Drive A and Drive B. There is a brief explanation on how to set the value. Select the path of Drive A and double-click the Priority field to enter the value. You can enter a random value. For the purpose mentioned above, please make sure that the Priority value for Drive A is larger than the value for Drive B.

When in Step 4, don’t forget to choose Select by Priority.

In settings, there are two other tabs where you can configure settings based on your preferences. For example, you can select a desired removal method and exclude files/folders from scan.

Cisdem Duplicate Finder for Mac

• Find duplicate files across multiple drives or on a single one
• Support internal and external storage
• Support all popular file types and formats
• Let you exclude folders/files from scan by size, location, extension, etc.
• Allow you to handily view, sort and preview duplicates
• Automatically select duplicates for you to remove with 1 click
• Also offer multiple selection rules
• Can move unwanted duplicates to Trash or a specific folder, or delete them permanently
• Easy to use

Find duplicate files across multiple drives on Windows

If you are a Windows PC user, you can use an app called Duplicate Cleaner. It is compatible with Windows 10, 8, 7 and Vista.

Step 1. Download and install the app on your computer. Open it.

Step 2. Now you are in the first interface. To find duplicate files across multiple drives, you need to launch a search first. Click New Search.

Step 3. Now you are under the Search criteria tab. There you can configure the search settings based on your need.

Step 4. Click Scan location tab. To scan multiple drives for duplicate files, drag them from the left to the Search Paths box on the right. Click Start scan.

Step 5. When the scan process is completed, you can use the Selection assistant tools to select the items that you don’t want. Thanks to the built-in preview, you can preview files before deletion without leaving the app.

Step 6. Click File removal.

Conclusion

This is how to easily find duplicate files across multiple drives. In such a case, it makes sense if we want to keep the wanted files on a preferred drive and delete all the rest. The tip provided in this guide can definitely help when it comes to this purpose.