Easy Steps to Find Duplicate Files and Delete Them on Windows 10/11 [Quick Guide]

Duplicate files do nothing but take up space, slow your computer, and make it hard to find the specific version of a file. Unless you have a specific use for them, you can delete duplicate files to get more space on your device. 

We’ll show you how to easily remove duplicates without wasting time. If you’re ready, let’s begin.

How to Find Duplicate Files and Remove Them on Windows 11/10

We’ll walk you through every step of the way to remove duplicate files on Windows 10 or 11, starting from the easy-to-use method:

Method 1: Use third-party software to remove duplicate files

The best tool I’d recommend to find duplicate files on Windows 11 and 10 almost instantly is Auslogics BoostSpeed. It’s a user-friendly app that offers a simple yet powerful solution to deeply clean up your PC in a safe and effective way. 

Here’s how to delete duplicate files in Windows 11 and 10 using this tool: 

• Go to the official website to download and install the software.  
• Run the program and click Duplicate File Finder on the toolbar. 

• If you can’t find the bar, click on All Tools and select Duplicate File Finder.

When the window opens, choose the drive you want to scan (if you have multiple drives) and select the files you want to search for. It can be videos, audio, images, etc. After that, click Next.

• In the next step, you can choose the file sizes you want to ignore in megabytes, gigabytes, and kilobytes. When you’re done, select Next. 

• You have the option to ignore file names, file dates, and even hidden files. When you check the Do not search in subfolders box, the search will only focus on the folders but not the folders within them. Click Next. 

• Here, you get to narrow down your search to get the most accurate results. If you’re searching for a specific file but you don’t remember the name, but only part of it, you can enter it here. Choose Next after that. 

• Finally, you can decide how BoostSpeed should discard the duplicates. You can choose to delete it permanently or send it to the Recycle Bin. However, if you select To Rescue Center, it’ll back up the deleted files to recover them at a later date. 

• Click Search to start the scan and wait as the software does its magic. 

If you don’t want to go through all these five steps, just click on Search, and BoostSpeed will use the default settings to search for duplicates. After the scan, you’ll get the results and decide which ones to delete and get more disk space. 

That said, if you want to permanently delete files, especially those that contain sensitive information, you can use File Shredder. You’ll find it on the left side under Options & Settings.

Method 2: Use Windows File Explorer to find and delete duplicates

You can use built-in File Explorer to sort your files to help find duplicate files on Windows 11 and 10 and delete them from your computer.

• Press the Windows logo key + S keyboard combination to open the search bar.
• Type in “indexing options.” Then click Open on the right-side menu.

• Click on the Modify button.
• When a new window opens, select Show all locations.
• Go to the Change selected locations section and select every checkbox. Then click on the OK button.

• Open File Explorer and select This PC on the left menu pane.

• Then, go to Local Disk (C:).
• Open the Users folder.

• Open the View tab at the top of the window and select Preview pane. 

• Also, go to the Layout section and select Details. 

• Open the Current view tab and click on the Group by dropdown arrow. Choose Name from the menu and then select Ascending.
• Now go to the search bar in the top-right corner of the screen and type in the extension for the files you want to delete. For instance, if you want to find duplicate JPEG images, type in “.jpg” (without quotes) and press Enter.

Here is a list of file extensions that you could use to help simplify the process:

Method 3: Use the Command Prompt to remove duplicate files

But what if you’ve copied (accidentally or on purpose) a bunch of files with different extensions within one folder? In this case, they will most likely have the “- Copy” suffix. So, how to delete them all at once?

You can save time using the Command Prompt to remove these duplicates. Here’s how: 

• First, use File Explorer and navigate to the folders where all these duplicates are stored.
• Right-click the directory and choose Copy as path to save the location. The address bar also displays the file path, which you can easily copy.

• Type “cmd” or “command prompt” in the Windows search box.
• Right-click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator. You can also right-click the Start button and select Terminal (Admin) from the menu that appears.

• Open the Command Prompt window and enter the following command: 
  

  cd /d "folder location" 
  

  Note

  Replace “folder location” with the full path of the folder you copied before. Using this command will move the current prompt to the specified directory. For example cd /d “C:\Users\Work Mode\Pictures\New folder”
• Now, type the following command and hit Enter:
  

  del "* - Copy.png"
  

• The command will delete all text files with the “- Copy” suffix in their names. Remember that you’ll need to change png in the command to the proper file extension if your duplicates aren’t in text formats, like del “* – Copy.txt” 

• If you want to delete all duplicates containing the “- Copy” suffix, no matter the extension, here’s the command you should use: del “* – Copy.*”

You can use this method to find duplicate files in Windows 11 and 10 and delete them. However, it’s limited in several ways. First, duplicates without the “- Copy” suffix won’t be deleted, and the command will only work within specific folders.

How to Delete Duplicate Files: Explained

Duplicates can quickly take up lots of space on your computer if you don’t pay attention to them. I’ve covered ways to help you find and delete duplicate files.

All the methods provided in this article can help you remove duplicates, however, using the Command Prompt and Windows Explorer can be tedious and time-consuming.

The best option is to use one of the PC cleaners, which get the job done way faster than the rest. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

FAQ