A lot of people find many duplicate files in their new Windows 7 system after using it for a while. They not only waste limited disk space but also bring you great inconvenience when you are looking for files that you need. This article is going to tell you how to delete duplicate files in Windows 7.
This is a very simple method that you can use to get rid of them in minutes. You only need to follow the steps as below:
Step 1. Open Your Computer.
Right click your “Computer” and select “Open”. You are in the root directory of your hard drive now.
Step 2. Enter File name.
In the Search box, enter the file name that may be duplicated. Press “Enter” and the scan will start automatically. Please note that you are scanning the whole computer now. If you want to scan other locations, you need to browse to the location first. And then start the scan.
Step 3. Compare and remove.
After the scan completes, a list of detected files that contain the same file name will be shown in the window. Right click black area, select “View” and then select “Details”. Now you can see all the information of the files such as file size, modified date, type and so on. Now you need to compare them carefully.
If you find it is hard to compare, right click black area again and select “Sort”. You can choose to sort the files by “Type”, “Name”, “Modified Date”, etc. That will help you find the duplicates and then remove them easily.
The Shortcomings
Although the above method is very easy to find and delete duplicates, it still has several shortcomings. Firstly, it can only search files by file name. That means the identical files that have different names will not be detected at all.
Besides, this method is applicable when you have only several files to deal with. If you have many files to manage, you will find it very slow and inefficient. You need to repeat the steps for a thousand times to get rid of all the duplicate files on your hard drive.
The Best Way
If you have only few files, the mentioned-above method is good for you. But if you have a pile of files to deal with, the best way is to use a Windows 7 duplicate file finder. It is much easier and faster than the above-mentioned method.
