Duplicate Finder apps

Question

It-not-Irie Author

Level 1

12 points

Duplicate Finder apps

Intent: Best duplicate locator app with controls & criteria to compare folders & decide which are the keepers.

I just migrated to a new iMac. Then updated to Sequoia. The old versions of software may linger in this migration.

Detail: I'm seeking to:

compare competing files, partial backups that should be cleaned up / assembled into one file.
Music files that exist in multiple folders & consolidate them to the correct folder location, post Catalina.

Opinion: A whole lot of articles & reviews online don't help much.

(Hardly the robust comparisons of the old MacUser Magazine from the 1990's).

Anybody have rock solid candidates they've compared head-to-head??

Posted on Oct 3, 2024 8:15 AM

Reply

Answer 1

den.thed

Level 10

96,642 points

Oct 3, 2024 9:06 AM in response to It-not-Irie

1) There is no magic wand to do what you are asking.

2) Duplicate app locaters are not reliable and can do more harm than good.

3) The new macOS version knows what to do with old software from the previous macOS versions.

4) Music and Photos are generally not a problem if you have faithfully imported them into the Music and Photos app's.

5) If the new Mac has plenty of free disk space and is running well. Then I recommend doing nothing, except enjoy the new Mac.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

96,642 points

Oct 5, 2024 10:53 AM in response to It-not-Irie

Again there is no magic wands.

No matter what, it is going to take some time and effort on your part to sort things out.

What I would do, is Import the music from those other sources into the Music App on the new Mac. Then in the Music App, I would select Songs in the sidebar so that I could see the duplicates. Then I work down the list and remove the duplicates from that list.

As far as old playlist go, only those that migrated over from the old Mac will work. All other playlist will need to be added or redone, after all of the music is in the Music App on the new Mac.

Basically > pull everything together in one place > remove the duplicates > then create a few new playlist if desired.

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Answer 3

BDAqua

Level 10

251,399 points

Oct 3, 2024 11:10 AM in response to It-not-Irie

Have a look at App Cleaner & Uninstaller, which is my goto cleanup app…

https://nektony.com/mac-app-cleaner

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Answer 4

BDAqua

Level 10

251,399 points

Oct 3, 2024 1:20 PM in response to Old Toad

App Cleaner & Uninstaller looks for & warns of such things & gives you choices, even foritems hat mught be used for Aps from other developers..

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Answer 5

den.thed

Level 10

96,642 points

Oct 10, 2024 7:47 AM in response to It-not-Irie

There is no App that is going to compare what is on the old or new Mac and those other locations.

The only way to do that, is to open the files side by side and then manually compare what you have.

What I'm suggesting, is to get everything together in one place even if it creates some duplicates.

To do that, you can Import the Music & Photos from the other locations into the new machine.

Then worry about cleaning up the Music and Photos duplicates when time permits.

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Answer 6

Old Toad

Level 10

217,802 points

Oct 3, 2024 12:18 PM in response to It-not-Irie

I don't use a duplicate file finder but when I want to delete an app and its supporting file is use the free AppCleaner. It works very well but with the caveat warning below:

WARNING: If you use AppCleaner on an app that you have other apps from the same developer, like Adobe, you must be extremely careful checking all checkboxes and deleting. Some for those files may support other apps from the same developer and deleting them can mess them up. Adobe apps is a primary example. I know from experience. For singular apps from a developer it's safe.

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Answer 7

It-not-Irie Author

Level 1

12 points

Oct 5, 2024 8:50 AM in response to den.thed

Thanks.

** I migrated from a decade old machine to a new one.** Machine to machine via wifi.

A relief to know I'm not carrying old gremlins over to the new one, if indeed that is the case.

---------

Maybe I'm looking for a wrong application calling it a duplicate finder?

I need to compare music folder contents & reconcile them into one.

In further explanation:

Mostly I want to reassemble my messed up music library on the new 2 TB machine from a variety of sources.

I have had partial deletions of past music libraries twice & some of my music library backups were corrupted.

My library is/was a blend of select songs loaded off my purchased CDs & many iTunes purchased songs. With hundreds of playlists I'd like to keep, if possible to reconstruct them.

Then I started running out of room on the old iMac.

Prior to Catalina, I had partial accidental deletions of my music library contents twice.

Some of those files may reside in various backups, or offloaded. However I've bought a LOT of music in the interim.

For a number of years the music files were being loaded into a nested folder by mistake. Not a problem until Catalina & my forgetting to at least redirect to the correct folder properly. (Some went to the previous correct location, others are in a nested Photoshop folder).

I need to compare & reconcile music folders by artist or album to restore it all in one spot.

For this a duplicate finder COMPARATOR might be OK–provided it shows me the comparison folders & contents without auto-deleting or overwriting them. I just need this tedious task to be a little less tedious.

Excuse the length of my follow-up.

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