Although I have had Ccleaner for some years, I have just tried for the first time, the Duplicate Finder. Assuming the list shown were duplicates, I started marking with a tick, all of those shown. However it went on and on, to the extent I have got cold feet as to what I might be doing. Most of the files shown seemed to be for 2009. Advice please. Do I proceed and delete them all or not? Many thanks.
What kind of files are they?
If they are your documents/photos/videos/etc. then only you can tell which you want to keep.
If they are system files then they are best left alone, you could break your machine by removing them.
They may be backup files so you can repair or reinstall Windows if you ever need to, or they may look like the same file but be slightly different versions for different apps to use.
Tick the option to ignore system files.
Follow the general rule - If in doubt leave it alone.
Many thanks for your prompt reply. I will ignore this facility and leave well alone then. Thanks.
It can be handy for finding things that you may have saved twice, or copied without meaning to.
But with system files then unless you are very short of disc space it's probably best to err on the safe side and leave them.
Many thanks again. I was born 83 years too early for all this tech stuff. So as you advised, I will leave all well alone as I have no idea what I would be doing. Unable to help re beer. I would be bound to spill it en route from Herts. Cheers.
No one can keep up entirely with what Microsoft does these days.
For instance CCleaner used to have the option to remove the windows.old folder, it was (fairly) safe to do so.
But with Windows 10 Microsoft changed they way they do upgrades, now removing the windows.old folder could break things in certain circumstances. (And did for some people).
So CCleaner now leaves it alone and let's Windows handle it itself.
I'm not as savvy as some, I'm sure, when it comes to the duplicate files. Mine all seem to be driver files in two locations and I have no clue which I should delete or if I should delete neither or none as some have 5 or 6 duplicates. Is there a trick I've never been taught? Thanks.