No duplicate files were found!

If you have run a scan and no duplicates are found, don’t worry. You either genuinely don’t have any duplicates, or you need to tweak the criteria a little.

Common settings which can cause no duplicates to be found are:

• Subfolders not being scanned. Are you scanning the subfolders of the folders in the Folders to search list? Make sure the Scan subfolders column is set to Yes. See Where to look.
• System or hidden folders being skipped. Are you trying to scan a system or hidden folder? Untick Skip system folders or Skip hidden folders in the advanced folder search options. Always be careful not to delete system files unless you are sure you don’t need them.
• The Ignore list or subfolder filter. Check that the folders aren’t being skipped by the Ignore list or the Subfolder filter.
• File filter restrictions. Check the file types in Search filters. Generally you want to scan everything (All file extensions) and exclude nothing.
• File size, date or dimension restrictions. Check you don’t have any file size, date or dimension limits in Search filters. Try Any file size, Any date and Any dimensions if not sure.
• Restrictive criteria. Make sure your criteria aren’t too restrictive. If searching by content, you don’t generally need Same file name or the same created or modified date. If you have Same file created date/time ticked, this won’t generally find copied duplicates, as copies usually have different created dates. The same goes for metadata fields set to Exact match.
• Other folder settings. In the Folders to search list, make sure that Find duplicates is set to Yes if you want to find duplicates within that folder. If Master is set, bear in mind that only files that duplicate a folder with the Master flag will be shown.
• The wrong scan mode. Be sure you are using Image mode to find similar, resized or rotated images. Otherwise only exact duplicates (same image, tags, size and so on) will be found. To find camera RAW images such as .cr2, .dng or .raw, tick Include camera RAW files in Image mode.
• File types switched off. Check the type hasn’t been unticked in File types settings.

Office documents or PDF files not matched

Sometimes documents such as Microsoft Word files, while seeming identical, don’t match in Same content mode. This is because they may have been opened and saved at different times, and so have tiny changes, such as dates, embedded in the file. This prevents an exact match.

Try a Text mode scan instead, which compares the words in the documents rather than the files themselves. Always be careful to double-check the files before removing them!