Same content
Overview
Section titled “Overview”Same content mode finds files with exactly the same content inside, regardless of name or date. Duplicate files matched this way will always be the same size on disc.
This mode is usually the fastest to scan and makes a good starting point for checking for duplicates. It works on any type of file.
You can add more duplicate options - for example Same file name to find only identical files that also have the same name.
Content comparison type
Section titled “Content comparison type”For advanced users, the method used for comparing files can be changed here:
- Hash algorithms (MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, SHA-384, SHA-512, BLAKE2b-256, BLAKE2b-512, xxHash64, xxHash3, xxHash128) - A hash is a “fingerprint” calculated from each file’s content. The fingerprints are then compared to find duplicates.
- Byte-to-Byte - Compares all identically sized files against each other, byte by byte. This will often be slower than the hashing methods.
The default is MD5, which can be changed with Default hash type in General settings. More information on the comparison types.
To save time, files are only compared with other files of the same size, and a quick hash of part of each file is used to rule out most non-matches before the full hash is calculated.
Caching
Section titled “Caching”If Use caching for calculated hashes is ticked in General settings, calculated hashes are stored, so a later scan of the same unchanged files is much faster.