Duplicates are essentially useless, which means they’re top candidates for a quick cleanup, including apps, photos, videos, or text files. Thanks to third-party apps, you can harness automation and tools to streamline the process or simply use built-in features on specific apps to delete duplicates manually.
I’ll be showing you how to get rid of duplicate files so you can save space for items that matter.
Automatically remove duplicates
With Gemini, finding and removing duplicate files on your Mac takes a matter of seconds. Available on Setapp.
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There have been times when I’ve:
Had automatic backups that generated multiple of the same file.
Even if you’re a more careful computer user than I am, duplicate files can still happen, and they’re certainly worth removing.
There are multiple ways to remove duplicate files on a Mac, and I’ve summed them all up in a general table below:
| I want to delete duplicates | Difficulty level | How to do this | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Using third-party apps | Easy | Use Gemini, CleanMyMac, or Disk Drill | |
| Via Terminal | Hard | Use the cd ~/[folder name] command and type find ./ -type f -exec md5 {} \; | awk -F '=' '{print $2 "\t" $1}' | sort | tee duplicates.txt. | |
| In Finder | Moderate | Open Finder> New Smart Folder > Search for duplicates. | |
| In Photos | Easy | Go to Photos >Utilities > Duplicates. | |
| In Mail | Moderate | Open Finder > Go > Go to Folder > Type ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.mail/Data/Library/Mail Downloads. | |
| In Messages | Easy | Messages > Copy content > Paste it in the Search bar. Open Finder > Go > Go to Folder > Type ~/Library/Messages/Attachments. |
|
The fastest and simplest way to perform a duplicate file search is by using dedicated duplicate file finders, as they’re made to scour your entire disk (or at least large sections of it) and detect these duplicates.
One of them is Gemini, a duplicate Mac cleaner that locates both similar and duplicate files using a one-of-a-kind smart algorithm. While it can wipe out these files in one click, you can also go through the visual results and select and group them yourself. Through AI, Gemini can also study what sort of files you’ve chosen for removal in past scans and upgrade its algorithm accordingly.
Performing a scan with Gemini was easy — it took less than a minute to open the app, click the scan button, and start the scanning. While you can choose specific folders to scan through, I chose my Macintosh HD disk drive. Once that was complete, it found 308.2 MB of removable content that I could then visually review under a few categories.
Once you've cleaned up duplicates withGemini, it’s easy to keep your Mac organized. How? Gemini will let you know right away if it finds any new duplicates you can ditch, all from the menu bar.
CleanMyMac also offers a similar straightforward cleanup method. While it’s not a dedicated duplicate cleaner, the My Clutter tool sorts through a variety of files and downloads. These include fresh duplicates over the last three months, similar images, large and old files, and downloads from browsers.
It took around a minute, from downloading the app to initiating a scan and getting results. I was allowed to visually review specific modules or all files. I couldn’t really tell the total of all the files together, but All Files under Large & Old Files showed 14.6 GB, most of which were files relating to The Sims 4 that I couldn’t delete. However, what I like most about CleanMyMac, aside from the neat interface, is that it provides granular categories, such as kind, size, and access date.
If you’re looking to do more than just clean up duplicates, you can check out other CleanMyMac tools to get rid of any junk on your Mac that you don’t need anymore. For that matter, I recommend the Smart Care tool, which will find and delete system junk, unused apps, cache files, files with malware, and so on.
Disk Drill is a file recovery app that comes with various extra tools, such as a byte-to-byte backup disk image, a secure disk wiper that prevents others from recovering deleted files, and, best of all, a duplicate file finder.
Like Gemini, you can choose specific files to scan through, but I chose my main Macintosh HD disk drive for the scan. The scan took no time, and the app found 234.6 MB of files to delete, spread out across pictures, documents, and others.
Disk Drill is a great tool for accidentally deleting something you didn’t mean to. You can get your stuff back on either your Mac or iPhone. Just open Disk Drill, click on one of the Mac storage devices tab (where you lost your files) or the iPhone/iPad tab and click Search for lost data.
If you’re more comfortable with backend commands and command line interfaces, Terminal is the best way to interact with the macOS, including when you want to manage files. Aren’t very familiar with Terminal? You may want to avoid this method altogether.
Here’s how to delete duplicates through Terminal:
Terminal will also automatically generate a .txt file of all the duplicates.
P.S. Make sure to back up your files with Disk Drill before you start any cleanup commands. If you accidentally delete something, it’ll be tougher to get it back later.
If you’re totally against automation and have the time on your hands to do your duplicate file search manually, you can use Smart Folders in Finder.
Here’s how to do it:
The worst part about this method is that you’ll now have to go through and sort all the files manually, which can take hours, if not days, depending on the number of files you have stored on your computer. It’s certainly not the easiest or quickest option, but if you truly want a hands-on method, it works.
TipSorting by Size or Date Modified is particularly helpful for identifying duplicates.
The number one culprit for most duplicates is photos, which is why Macs introduced an automatic duplicate detector with macOS Ventura and Sonoma that helps you remove duplicate files.
If your Mac operates either Venture or Sonoma, here’s how to check duplicates in Photos:
This method sort of acts like a middle ground, where it’s not entirely automated nor entirely manual. The app will detect duplicates for you, but you’ll need to manually decide what you want to do with them.
Not many people might realize this, but your Mail and Messages apps can truly take up a lot of space on your computer, especially if you frequently share media with your friends and family. These are often stored indefinitely in those apps until you decide to delete them. In Mail, they’re called “twin” attachments, as they’re stored in a folder on their own on your computer, too.
To find them:
The folder will display all attachments downloaded from the Mail app, which may include duplicate files saved multiple times.
Note: Unfortunately, there’s now a direct way to check for duplicates on the Messages app on macOS. So there are two possible ways to find them:
Now that you know how to delete duplicate files on Mac, there’s no time like the present to do so. When you take the time to use built-in tools like Finder’s Smart Folders or the Photos automatic duplicate detector, you’ll realize how much precious space was truly taken up by duplicate files. While these features are handy, third-party apps with completely automated duplicate detector solutions can scan and remove duplicates much better and effectively.
Gemini, Disk Drill, and CleanMyMac are just three tools out of the 250+ that Setapp offers under a subscription or a 7-day trial, giving you access to a wide range of apps that help you keep your Mac optimized and clutter-free. By the way, if you want to delete duplicates on your phone, then you’ll love the CleanMy®Phone app from Setapp — the next time you’re coming back from vacation, you’ll be able to clear out the clutter before you hop on the plane.
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