Features:       File Classification and Categorization Storage Utilization Analysis Duplicate Files Search and Removal Rule-Based File Organizing Rule-Based File Search File System Change Monitor High-Speed File Synchronization High-Speed File Copy and Data Migration File Delete and Data Wiping Operations User-Defined Commands Built-In Disk Cleaner File Management and Navigation  

The FlexTk's built-in duplicate files finder provides a large number of advanced features and capabilities allowing one to identify and cleanup duplicate files on personal computers, servers and enterprise storage systems. In addition, power users and IT professionals are provided with policy-based duplicate files detection and removal capabilities (FlexTk Ultimate only) allowing one to define custom duplicate files detection and removal commands and execute them in a fully unattended, automatic mode. For more information about how to detect and remove duplicate files in enterprise environments refer to the advanced duplicate files search and removal tutorial.

For more information about expected performance refer to: Performance Review

In order to start a duplicates search operation, select one or more directories or files and press the 'Duplicates' button on the main toolbar. In regular cases there is no need to setup any advanced options - just press the 'Start' button and wait for the search operation to complete. During the search process, the duplicates search process dialog will display the total number of processed files, the number of detected duplicate files and the amount of the wasted storage space. In order to terminate an ongoing operation, just press the 'Stop' button located on the duplicates process dialog.

After finishing the search process, FlexTk will show the list of detected duplicate file sets, the number of detected duplicate files and the amount of the wasted storage space. Each duplicate file set may contain two or more files that are identical. Files are considered identical if they have identical data. Some duplicates may have identical file names, others may be named differently or even have different file extensions. During the duplicates search process, FlexTk compares files' data only and therefore accurately detects duplicate files with arbitrary file names.

The duplicates search results list shows duplicate file sets sorted by the amount of the wasted storage space. In order to export a report file containing the list of all duplicate file sets, press the 'Export' button and select an appropriate file format (HTML, Text or Excel CSV). In order to open a duplicate set, just click on the set item in the results list. The duplicate set dialog shows all duplicate files related to the set with one of them marked as the original file. By default, FlexTk selects the oldest file in the set as the original file. Select another duplicate file and press the 'Set Original' button to change the original file for the set.

The FlexTk's built-in duplicate files finder provides a number of duplicates removal actions including: replace all duplicates with a link to the original file, move all duplicates to a user specified directory and delete all duplicate files. All duplicates removal actions are performed relative to the original file, which may be set manually (by the user) or automatically using a number of predefined options or custom user policies. In the simplest case, just press the 'Select' button and select the 'Newest Files as Duplicates' in order to select the oldest file as the original and all other files as duplicates.

In order to simplify the selection process, FlexTk provides the user with the ability to make selections in multiple duplicate sets at once. Select one or more duplicate sets in the results list, press the right mouse button and select the 'Replace With Links' menu item. All duplicate files in all selected duplicate sets will be selected and the removal action will be set to 'Replace with Links'. In order to reset previously selected duplicate files and actions, press the 'Select' button and select the 'Unselect All' menu item.

After finishing the selection process, press the 'Preview' button to see the final list of duplicates removal actions that will be performed. Unselect specific actions that were improperly selected during the selection stage and press the 'Execute' button to start the duplicates removal process. During the removal process, FlexTk will show the total number of processed files and the amount of freed storage space.

Advanced Options

Power computer users and IT professionals are provided with a large number of advanced duplicates search options allowing one to fully automate the duplicates detection and removal process using flexible user-defined rules and policies. In addition, the user is provided with the ability to customize and tune the search process for user specific storage configurations and performance requirements. Finally, customized duplicates search operations may be saved as user-defined commands and executed as needed using the FlexTk's main GUI application, as a standalone GUI tool directly from the desktop or using FlexTk's command line tools.

In order to open the duplicates search options dialog, press the 'Advanced Options' button located on the 'Find Duplicate Files' dialog. The 'General' tab allows one to control a number of basic parameters:

• Signature Type - this parameter sets the type of the algorithm that should be used to compare files: MD5, SHA1 or SHA256. The SHA256 algorithm is the most reliable one and it is used by default. The MD5 and SHA1 algorithms are significantly faster, but less reliable.
• File Scanning Mode - this parameter controls the way FlexTk scans directories and files and it may be set to sequential or parallel. FlexTk is optimized for multi-core/multi-CPU computers and advanced RAID storage systems and capable of scanning multiple file systems in parallel. The parallel scanning mode will speedup the duplicates search process when processing multiple input directories located on multiple physical hard disks or a RAID disk array.
• Max Dup File Sets - this parameter controls the maximum number of duplicate file sets displayed in the results list. After finishing the search process, FlexTk will sort all the detected duplicate file sets by the amount of the wasted storage space and display the top X duplicate file sets as specified by this parameter (default is 1000).
• File Scanning Filter - this parameter allows one to specify a file scanning filter to be used during the duplicate files search. The file scanning filter provides the user with the ability to limit the duplicates search process to a specific file type or a custom file set matching the specified file scanning filter. For example, in order to search for duplicate JPEG images only, set the file scanning filter to '*.jpg'. This file scanning filter will match all files with the extension JPG (JPEG Images) and skip all other files.

The 'Rules' tab allows one to specify multiple file matching rules that should be used during the duplicates search process. If there are no file matching rules defined in the 'Rules' tab, FlexTk will process all file types. Otherwise, FlexTk will process files matching the specified rules only. For detailed information about how to use file matching rules refer to the Advanced, Rule-Based Search tutorial.

The 'Performance' tab provides the user with the ability to customize the duplicates search process for user-specific storage configurations and performance requirements. FlexTk is optimized for multi-core/multi-CPU computers and advanced RAID storage systems and capable of scanning multiple file systems in parallel. In order to speed up the duplicates search process, use multiple processing threads when searching through input directories located on multiple physical hard disks or a RAID disk array. In addition, in order to minimize potential performance impact on running production systems, FlexTk allows one to intentionally slow down the duplicates search process. According to your specific needs, select the 'Full Speed', 'Medium Speed', 'Low Speed' or 'Manual Control' performance mode.

The 'Exclude' tab allows one to specify a list of directories that should be excluded from the duplicates search process. Directories containing operating system files may have a large number of duplicate files that should not be removed. Duplicates located in the Windows system directories may be critical to the proper operation of the operating system and it is highly recommended to avoid touching any files in these directories. By default, FlexTk populates the list of exclude directories from the global list of exclude directories, which may be modified on the FlexTk options dialog's 'Exclude' tab.

The 'Actions' tab provides the user with the ability to predefine one or more automatic duplicates detection and removal actions (FlexTk Ultimate only). Each action may contain a number of rules specifying how to detect the original file in each duplicate file set and what action to perform if the original was successfully detected. The actions mode combo box, which is located on the bottom-right side of the tab, provides three distinct operation modes: manual, auto-select and execute.

In the 'Manual' actions mode (default), FlexTk does not perform any automatic operations and the user will be required to select original files, duplicates and removal actions for each duplicate file set manually.

In the 'Auto-Select' actions mode, FlexTk will evaluate duplicate files and try to detect the original file in each set of duplicate files according to the specified original detection rules and policies. Actions containing the original file detection rules will be evaluated one after one in the order as they specified in the actions list. If a duplicate file will match rules defined in an action, the duplicate file will be set as the original and the matching action will be set as the active action for the whole duplicate set.

The 'Execute' mode is the most advanced duplicates detection and removal move, which is intended for automatic execution of actions matching one or more duplicate file sets. During the search process, FlexTk will evaluate all duplicate files and set matching actions. After finishing the search process, FlexTk will automatically execute all actions that were set and remove all duplicate files using policies defined in each specific action.

FlexTk's built-in duplicate files finder provides a large number of advanced features and capabilities allowing one to automatically detect and cleanup duplicate files on personal computers, servers and enterprise storage systems. In order to simplify management and execution of duplicates search and removal operations, FlexTk provides the user with the ability to define frequently used duplicate search operation as user-defined commands and execute them as needed using FlexTk's main GUI application, as a standalone GUI tool directly from the desktop or using FlexTk's command line utility.

Once configured and tuned, a user-defined duplicates search command may be executed automatically at specific time intervals using a general purpose command scheduler such as the Windows Task Scheduler. For example, by using FlexTk's command line tools in conjunction with user-defined commands, the user may configure FlexTk to fully automatically search and remove duplicate files from specific directories, servers or enterprise storage systems once a week or month.