The most common reason for ending up with duplicate files is that we keep downloading the same files over and over again. For example, we download some PDF file and save it on the hard drive somewhere. Next time when we need the same file, do we find it easier to download it again or look for the already downloaded file? Yes, we just download it again. If we keep doing this for a few months, we will have tons of duplicate files on the computer.
Duplicate files do not really cause any harm, but they could take up the storage space on your hard drive or other media. Besides having the copies of the same file all over your hard drive is not very good for the performance of the computer itself.
Fortunately, there are some programs such as “Duplicate Files Search & Link” using which we can quickly locate all of these duplicate files. This program can also find the symlinks on your hard drives. Symlinks are files that are not real files themselves, but they just point to other real files. Having symlinks could also be considered as having duplicate files on your PC.
Duplicate Files Search & Link has a tad older style user interface, but that does not mean it won’t find the identical files. We can use it in hardlink mode or the symlink (soft link) mode. We can begin by selecting one or more folders and then clicking on the Start Search button. As it find the files and shows them in the list of duplicates, you can use the filter to narrow down the search results by their file names. You can delete the duplicate files, move them, rename them, or compress them to an archive.
Duplicate Files Search & Link is a fast identical file finding utility for Windows. It works on all the versions of Windows from Windows XP to Windows 10. It is available both as a portable program as well as a regular installer.
You can download Duplicate Files Search & Link from http://malich.org/duplicate_searcher.aspx.