Can Windows Find Duplicate files?

Duplicate files not only take up valuable storage space but can also lead to confusion and inefficiency. Thus, some users would like to know if Windows can find duplicate files and remove them. Fortunately, you can find and eliminate these redundant files via File explorer.

The most straightforward way is to use Windows Search. Press the Windows key and "S" simultaneously to open the Windows Search bar, then type in a keyword related to the file you suspect is duplicated. For example, if you're searching for duplicate images, use a relevant keyword.

As the search results populate, right-click on a file and select "Open file location" to see if there are multiple copies in different folders. In here, you can review the search results and manually delete duplicate files by selecting them and pressing the "Delete" key.

While this method works well for some file types, it may not be the most efficient way to find duplicates, especially if you have numerous files.

Another way is to use File Explorer. Open File Explorer by pressing the Windows key and "E" together. Navigate to the folder or drive where you suspect duplicate files may be stored.

In the search bar at the top-right corner, type "kind: (file type)" (e.g., "kind: .jpg" for image files).

This will filter the files in the folder to display only those of the specified type. Manually review the search results for duplicate files, and delete them as needed.

This method is more efficient than Windows Search, but it still requires manual inspection, which can be time-consuming.

In conclusion, both built-in tools indeed can help you find duplicate manually, but they often run slowly and perform in failure. So, the best way to find and remove duplicate files is to choose third-party tool. You can directly try AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to use “Duplicate file finder” to scan target location and safely remove those files.

After you download and install this tool, go “Free up” and “Duplicate file finder”, select the target drive and click “Scan”, all files will be listed. Then, you can tick the duplicate files from the result, and choose a way of how to deal with these files to remove all duplicate files. In addition, you can set personal reference.