How Can Duplicate Files Be Harmful To Your Windows PC?

It’s quite natural to have multiple copies of the same file on your computer especially when you regularly copy files and folders from one drive to another or when you copy files from various devices to your computer. Amidst, a jampacked schedule, we hardly have the time to breathe, leave alone organizing files on our computer.

That said, you should remove duplicates of files from various locations on your computer. Yes, you heard us right. That’s because duplicate files can be harmful to your PC in various ways. You’ll be surprised at the amount of harm you are causing to your computer by not deleting duplicates from time to time. Worry not! By the end of this post, we’ll give you an easy and safe way in which you can get rid of duplicates quickly with a few clicks.

How Duplicate Files Can Be Harmful?

1. Unnecessarily Occupy Disk Space

Duplicate files affect your disk and storage space. For example, let’s assume you have a large file that is approximately 1 GB. If there are 5 more copies then it means 5 GB of the space is blocked. By removing duplicates you can save up a lot of storage.

2. File Management Becomes Tough

One of the best file management tips is to keep duplicate files as far as possible. Here’s why – when you have some copies of files, it is hard to differentiate between the files and folders that have to be kept and the ones that have to be deleted.

Once in a while, this may not create an issue. But, when there are several copies, you have to open every file to analyze the contents before you delete something, it could be a very painful and tiring process.

Not just that, if you are short on time, you might even end up deleting the wrong file leading to data loss. Talking of which, if you are in a position where you have lost some important data, here are some of the best data recovery tools that can help get lost data back.

3. Duplicate Files Slow Down Your PC

When several duplicate files are scattered across different locations on your computer, your machine will take longer to locate and identify data. And, it’s not just because of one but many reasons. This leads to redundant background processes that consume more CPU. They even clutter the registry and extend backup time. They also hamper file searches.

Apart from duplicate files, your PC might have slowed down because of various reasons, some of which are mentioned in this post.

4. Your Backup Space Gets Hampered

Time and again we reinstate the importance of backing up data. But, do you know that data backup and duplicates are enemies?

Regardless of how you back up data, duplicate files can be an obstacle there as well. While backing up duplicate files unnecessarily clog your backup storage. And, in case you use a cloud storage medium to back up data, you could be blocking that limited storage space.

5. Conflicts In File Synchronization

When using file synchronization software, duplicate files on your computer can lead to file versioning issues or other kinds of data discrepancies.

6. Privacy and Security Risks

When there are too many duplicates, you might accidentally share a sensitive document or image or another file that you are otherwise not supposed to share. Let’s take an example – You are working on a file and often create copies or versions. Once finished, you forget to delete the duplicate version and then accidentally submit an unfinished version of the file.

Use a Duplicate File Remover Utility

You must be very careful when deleting duplicate files since a wrong move would mean losing precious data. Here we have enlisted some of the best ways to remove duplicate files on a PC.

Out of all the methods, the quickest and safest way to delete duplicates is to use a duplicate file remover tool like Duplicate Files Fixer. It uses advanced algorithms with which you can quickly identify duplicate files and remove the ones that are not needed.

How Can Duplicate Files Fixer Help Get Rid of Duplicates?

• Identify and get rid of all kinds of duplicate files.
• Preview scan results.
• Remove duplicate files from your backup.
• Add and remove files from scan results.
• Remove duplicate files from both external as well as internal storage mediums.
• Auto mark option

How To Remove Duplicate Files Using Duplicate Files Fixer?

Step 1 – Download, install, and run Duplicate Files Fixer

Step 2 – Drag and drop the folder or location that you want to scan for duplicate files and click on Scan for Duplicates button. Wait for the scan to complete.

Step 3 –  You can either select files manually or use Auto Mark to mark conveniently mark one duplicate in each group.

Step 4 – To preview files by type, you can click on each of the file types and even sort them by size.

Step 5 – Once you have selected the files that you want to delete, click on the Delete Marked option at the bottom.

Time To Revamp Your PC: Get Rid of Duplicate Files

The above write-up intends to make you aware of the various dangers that duplicate files carry with them. As a prudent user, you should free up your PC of duplicate files. And you needn’t go through the grind of manually locking horns with duplicate files, you can instead use a tool like Duplicate Files Fixer.

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