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Duplicate files mess around with the way you organize files and, what's more, they may take up a significant amount of storage space that would otherwise be used more efficiently. It is recommended that you take the necessary measures to clean up your computer periodically. Handling duplicate files manually is difficult, but with the help of a dedicated application, it can become a routine operation.

Smart Duplicate Cleaner is one of the applications that can help you detect duplicate files on your computer. Using it is easy, thanks to the tab-based interface and the accessible filtering options.

Before running the first scan, you should navigate to the "Options" tab to configure the duplicate analysis options. Smart Duplicate Cleaner comes with a list of predefined directories to scan, which you can delete one by one to build up the list from scratch. Unfortunately, there is no "empty list button" so you will have to delete every folder yourself, confirming each action you take.

There are a few additional filtering options you can tamper with, namely the type of files to search for and the matching algorithm to apply. Smart Duplicate Cleaner can compare files based on either their size or their creation date. The minimum file size to take into consideration is also customizable.

The scan duration highly depends on the number of folders you selected as input. Smart Duplicate Cleaner displays all the files for whom it found duplicates, along with the location of the dupe files. You can easily select the files to delete using checkboxes. Auto-select allows you to choose between the newest files or the original files.

Smart Duplicate Cleaner can either send the files you decide to erase to the Recycle Bin or wipe them from your computer. Whatever you choose, cleaning duplicates allows you to reclaim disk space on your hard drive.

Smart Duplicate Cleaner can find duplicate files on your PC almost in an instant, but it only allows you to delete entries, without offering alternatives (e.g. moving files, renaming them). The range of comparison criteria is a bit limited, considering that there are some competitor software out there that can analyze not just the creation date, the name, the size, or the hash code of a file, but also its content.