Q: Has anyone had any experience using the apple dupicate cleaner. Are you satisfied with it?

What Apple duplicate cleaner? I'm not aware of any such product from Apple.

are you talking about some feature in Mac OS X or iOS or iTunes App or 3rd party App that finds "duplicate" files for the reason of saving space?

... the apple dupicate cleaner.

I don't know what that is.

Don't use "cleaning" apps on a Mac. They're all scams.

It is possible that the OP wants iTunes "remove duplicate items" feature?

Find and remove duplicate items in your iTunes library - Apple Support

John Galt wrote:

 

... the apple dupicate cleaner.

 

I don't know what that is.

 

Don't use "cleaning" apps on a Mac. They're all scams.

FWIW, you're correct that there is no "apple duplicate cleaner" however, there are "duplicate finders" which are not "cleaning" programs but rather useful programs that can help one find duplicate photos, music files etc.

• Spotlight
• Terminal
• "Duplicate finders"

Thanks for removing the link ChitlinsCC.

FIXED - my bad and Humblest of apologies

what I saw was the Spotlight & Terminal instructions - with one example of an app

Caveat Emptor ???

ChitlinsCC wrote:

 

• Spotlight
• Terminal
• "Duplicate finders"

I have no idea why you are addressing me. Just being friendly?

You know me, I'm a friendly kinda guy

* agreeing with "duplicate finders" apps (not Finder)

At bottom, "finding exactly what one wants" is a HUMAN endeavor

If I were to wish to find dups, I would use Spotlight (the Finder in the old days) and make decisions individually

So far in my testing of the so-called "cleaning" app for Mac, none have survived from my test configuration to actually be installed on my production Macs. The either don't do what they say or are dangerous with a few being both at the same time. My recommendation is to avoid them all.

FWIW, to take photos as an example, there are dup finders that can find images that are similar, i.e. may be different sizes, different file names, different orientations, different formats, etc. I'm not aware of a search technique using Spotlight or the terminal that can do that. Basically the programs use simple A.I. methods.

But yes, you seem friendly.

The link that I was advised to remove talked about using a terminal command string that appeared to me to be searching for a all kinds of parameters like size

=====

So, here’s how you search for duplicate files with Terminal:

1. Find Terminal in the Utilities folder or using Spotlight search and open it.
2. Navigate to the folder you want to scan with the cd command. For example, if you want to scan Downloads, type in cd ~/Downloads and hit Enter.
3. Copy and paste this command:
   find . -size 20 \! -type d -exec cksum {} \; | sort | tee /tmp/f.tmp | cut -f 1,2 -d ‘ ‘ | uniq -d | grep -hif – /tmp/f.tmp > duplicates.txt
   and hit Enter.

  This will create a text file in the folder you’ve specified, with a list of your duplicates inside. But there are two “buts” here: first, Terminal overlooks a lot of duplicates, and second, you’ll still need to find those duplicate files and sift through them to separate the copies from the originals. So, this command is more like a crystal ball: it gives you hints, but you still have to go and do stuff yourself.

=====

With all the filters in Spotlight, its a wonder that there is not one for "aspect ratio" or "orientation" when one has chosen "pictures"

I actually know how to search in the Terminal and using Spotlight.

However, it's much, much easier selecting a photo with an app that has a GUI and telling it, "find photos that are similar.". You still have to manually scan the results.

But, I agree with everyone else, so called "cleaning" programs do not belong on a Mac. Or on any platform really.