Downloaded CCleaner free edition hoping to delete duplicate files,mainly photos. Clicking the duplicates took approx 4 hours! seemed to work,then I looked at my photos and many duplicates were still there! Help,please.
It's called 'Duplicate Finder'. (Not Duplicate deleter).
It will find duplicate files, and show you where those duplicates are saved.
Duplicate Finder can save you hours of searching, but it can't read your mind.
There is no way that any computer programme can know which ones you want to delete and which ones you want to keep.
So Duplicate Finder won't do that.
You have to look at the results yourself, and decide for yourself if you want to keep something or not.
As for the time it took to search that's down to the settings that you specified.
Try unticking 'Content' so that it's not searching inside the files.
And tick 'Ignore' for System Files, Hidden files etc. - only search for your own files.
Hi nukecad, the 4 hours of clicking I described was choosing then hitting delete for many hundreds of files. at the end of the process duplicate finder could find no duplicates,I may be a bit of a technophobe but not quite that thick!
Sorry if it came across like that, we never know how experienced or inexperienced any new poster is so tend to err on the simplistic side.
Ok, still doesn't explain what happened or solve my problem. Years ago I recall another forum suggesting.....why worry about duplicates,they just sit there not bothering anybody!
May be the case but aesthetically they annoy the heck out of me,I don't understand how they got there and surely they take up potentially useful data space. There,that's off my chest. Yep, on the techy side of things I'd certainly be considered inexperienced so no offence taken.