Duplicate Detective helps Mac users find duplicate files and then delete them to free up space. Very easy to use, installation takes a few minutes. Upon startup, you will see the utility window. Drag and drop the folder you want to scan and Duplicate Detective will find the duplicates. The utility looks for exact duplicates of your files. It checks the hash strings for the files to see if there are any duplicate elements.

If you want to scan the entire hard drive, this may take some time. It’s usually best to scan folders individually if you suspect they might contain duplicate files. So the results are also much faster. It’s good that the utility continues to send you messages like “how was your day?” etc. telling you that it hasn’t hung and is just scanning your hard drive volume for a little longer. A small but handy feature, no doubt. When the scan is completed, the application will tell you the number of files that have been scanned in the folder, the files that have been duplicated, and the space these duplicate files are taking up.

The approach is very simple, as is the interface. Filter your listings and security measures to make sure you don’t blindly delete everything. If you delete something by mistake, you can always restore it from the trash. It’s one of the few mindful cleaning apps that provides good cleaning options rather than deleting everything it can find. Not the best, but worth a try because it’s simple and effective.