Sorting backup hard drive for duplicates and getting one single copy

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Posts: 2
Joined: 21 Oct 2019

boardtc

I have an old backup drive that has backups on it of my old machine from using cobain Backup. There are other folders on it that were copied from previous machines too I think. Lots of text documents, photos, Music. I would like to delete all and have one copy of everything to sort through.

I ran dupeGuru on it and it found 40,000 duplicates, I didn't know where to start so have done nothing! Previously I have tried to use SyncToy to compare some of the backup directories but it would still a big list of stuff to go through.

I'd like something which said something most of these directories are the same, would you like to merge the content and delete the duplicates.

I would appreciate any advice. I have not downloaded FreeFileSync yet, can it help me?

Many thanks!
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Posts: 3583
Joined: 11 Jun 2019

xCSxXenon

That is not a sync, therefore FFS is not suitable for that use. You are probably better off moving all the files into directories containing file types/categories ex. pictures, music, jpgs, pdfs, etc. Then sorting/searching for duplicates all in each directory.
Posts: 2
Joined: 21 Oct 2019

boardtc

That's a decent idea, thanks.