How to find duplicate photos and files across several drives¶
Every drive you ever copied "just in case" holds copies of the one before it. Finding the duplicates by eye is hopeless once the copies have different names and live on different drives. This guide finds them by content.
How ArchiveMind does it¶
During a scan, ArchiveMind computes a fingerprint of every file's contents. Two files with the same fingerprint are the same file, whatever they are called and wherever they are — including on drives that are not plugged in right now. The Duplicates tab lists every group of copies with the number of copies and the space the extra ones take up.
Steps¶
- Catalogue each drive or folder you want compared (see How to catalogue an external hard drive). Duplicates are only found among files that have been catalogued.
- Open the Duplicates tab. Groups are listed with their copy count and recoverable space; each copy shows its own path and source drive, with a thumbnail where there is one.
- Decide what to do copy by copy. Reveal in Finder / Show in Explorer acts on the exact copy you clicked, never on "the group".
- Delete what you no longer want in Finder or File Explorer, then scan the affected drive again so the catalogue reflects it.
Reading the list honestly¶
- A copy listed on an Offline drive is listed from the catalogue: it was there when that drive was last scanned. Confirm what still exists before you remove the copy you can reach.
- "Duplicate" means byte-for-byte identical. A resized photo, a re-encoded song or an edited copy is a different file, and is not listed as a duplicate of the original.
What it cannot do¶
- Delete anything. ArchiveMind never deletes files — not duplicates, not anything. It shows you where the copies are; the decision and the deletion are yours, in Finder or File Explorer.
- Spot near-duplicates. Similar is not identical; two photos of the same moment from a burst are two files.
- Compare drives it has not scanned. A drive that was never catalogued is invisible to it.