I’ve mentioned in previous posts in this series that I’m pretty big on how I organize my photos. That is, I use a service for backing them up, and a utility to make sure that they are also stamped with the proper date and time as per the EXIF data.

But another challenge that comes with managing not only photos, but other files such as MP3s (be it music, podcasts, eBooks, documents, and so on) is making sure that you don’t have duplicate files lying around the file system.

To be clear, sometimes you may want the same copy of multiple files. For example, say you buy an album from Hammock and then you drop a couple of tracks from them on a playlist or a, gasp, mix CD, then you wouldn’t want to delete both copies of the files.

In any case, if you’re trying to keep your pictures, documents, MP3s, and other files in as lean as shape as possible, I recommend Gemini for identifying, locating, and removing duplicate files.

Gemini: Detecting Duplicate Files

Gemini is an incredibly simple app that works much in the same way as Better Rename 9 and CleanMyMac in that it’s got a great looking interface and it’s really easy to use.

Gemini

The way Gemini works is simply:

  1. You drag a directory – either top-level or subdirectory level – into the main UI and then it will scan looking for all duplicates.
  2. Once it find the duplicates, it gives you the ability to select which duplicate file to remove.
  3. It also presents the option to autoselect files, to remove the oldest, newest, or to pick random ones, and then delete them.

Depending on your backup strategy, this can go along way in saving space by providing a way for you to more easily backup single instances of a file rather than having them scattered all over the place across the file system.

At any rate, regardless of what your use case is, I highly recommend Gemini for anyone who is looking to remove duplicate files across their documents, videos, photos, and other media types.