I have hundreds of duplicate files, spent an hour checking the ones I want delete, then got a pop up saying I am not allowed to delete them. Why have a duplicate fider that does nothing but waste my time?
Firstly are those ‘hundreds of duplicate files’ System Files?
I suspect that they will be if Windows is not allowing you to delete them.
And you should be glad that it isn’t letting you.
If they are Sytem Files then you should not delete them, even the ones that Windows would let you delete.
The Windows Operating System NEEDS duplicate files in various places to operate correctly.
If you delete those duplicates then things will stop working, or stop working properly.
You should always have System Files selected under ‘Ignore’, (unless you are an advanced user specificly looking for a problem with the system).
More Generally when using the Duplicate Finder.
You say that you spent hours checking what it had found, which is good and shows that you are not rushing things.
The ‘select individually’ restriction is there in the Duplicate Finder to help protect those who are not so careful.
It is deliberate; and it’s that way so that you have to think and not just wipe out things that you may not mean to.
For example say you have searched on ‘Name’ alone.
Photo1.jpeg in one folder and Photo1.jpeg in a different folder would be found.
But they could be totally different images.
(I usually only ever search on Size and Content as shown in the above screenshot, that way I know that any duplicates found are exact duplicates, regardless of their names).
You have to be careful just what you are searching for, it’s a fast and powerful duplicate finder, unfortunately that makes it easy for the unwary to rush things and make mistakes.
And that is why it will not let you just ‘Delete All’ - you have to select each individually and then ‘Delete Selected’.
They are all files I created. They were duplicated when MS updates killed some of my work and I had to use my recovery. It copied everything. And, yes, I checked every choice individually. It denied access.
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Interesting, that sounds like a permissions issue with one or more of the selected files.
(Protected files? Bitlocked files?)
Have you tried deleting (some of) them in Windows File Explorer
No, I will try that. Thank you.