Duplicate Files activity center

4 minutes
11 months ago

Duplicate Files Activity Center

This window locates and displays project folders and files that are exact duplicates of other folders and files within a selected folder. Use this window to locate and delete unnecessary duplicate folders and files from your file server to free space. To be considered duplicates, files have to have the same names, sizes, and modified dates; for a folder to be considered duplicate, all files within the folder must have the same names, sizes, and modified dates as the files in another folder.

Create a Report

Click to open the Create Report dialog box to select the type of duplicate file report to create.

See Folder Tasks panel. This panel appears when you select a folder from the Duplicate File Details section at the bottom of this window.

See File Tasks panel. This panel appears when you select a file from the Duplicate File Details section at the bottom of this window.

The following additional file task is available from this panel:

Delete

Click to delete the selected file. Important: Deleting a file permanently removes it from both Project Center and your Windows file system. Make sure you actually want to delete it before doing so. Once it is deleted, you cannot retrieve it.

See Email Tasks panel. This panel appears when you select files of type .MSG or .EML from the Duplicate File Details section at the bottom of this window.

Duplicate Files

Folder

The full path of the folder being searched for duplicates.

Filter All Columns

You can filter by any text that appears in any of the Items columns. For example, if you know the name (or part of the name) of the file that you are searching for (or the size, type, etc.), enter at least part of the text in this field. The Items list updates automatically as you type. For example, if the file you are searching for has the number 30 somewhere in one of the columns, enter 30 in this field. The list will be narrowed down to only files that have the number 30 somewhere in one of the columns.

Click to clear all filters.

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Click to toggle between showing and hiding the column filter fields.

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Click to group by the any of the columns. For example, if you want to group the list of items by name, select Name from the drop-down list. The items will be grouped into separate sections alphabetically by subject. See Column Sorting, Filtering, and Grouping for more information.

Duplicate Files

All columns are listed here. Right-click on any column header to list or de-list columns.

This section lists the names of folders and files that have exact duplicates within the folder selected in the Project Files activity center. Select a folder or file from the Duplicate Files section to list its duplicates in the Duplicate File Details section at the bottom.

Name

The name of the folders and files that have duplicates.

Size

The size of each instance of the duplicated folder or file.

Type

Indicates if the item is a folder, or the file type.

Date Modified

The date the folder or file was last modified.

Duplicate Count

The number of duplicates that exist for each folder or file. For example, 2 indicates that there are 3 total copies – the “original” and two duplicates.

Overhead

Overhead indicates the total amount of space that is being used (wasted) by the duplicate folders or files. For example, if a file’s size is 200 MB, and three duplicates exist, the overhead is 600 MB (3×200). (The total amount of space being used by all four files in this case is 800 MB.)

 

Duplicate File Details

This section lists the full path to the location of each instance of the duplicate of the folder or file selected above. For example, if a file has three duplicates, all four instances are listed here. You can select the duplicates you want to delete and click Delete from the Folder Tasks or File Tasks panel.

Path

The full path to the folders or files.

Notes

Any notes about the folders or files.

 

To access this window

Select a project folder, then click Utilities > Find Duplicate Files from the Folder Tasks panel of the Project Files activity center.