Many people find many duplicate files on their new Windows 7 system after using it for a while. Not only do they waste limited disk space, but they also cause you great inconvenience when searching for the files you need. This article will tell you how to remove duplicate files in Windows 7.

This is a very simple method that you can use to get rid of them in minutes. You just need to follow the steps below:

Step 1. Open your computer.
Right click on your “Computer” and select “Open.” You are now in the root directory of your hard drive.

Step 2. Enter the name of the file.
In the search box, enter the name of the file that may be duplicated. Press “Enter” and the scan will start automatically. Note that you are now scanning the entire computer. If you want to scan other locations, you must first find the location. And then start the scan.

Step 3. Compare and delete.
After the scan is complete, a list of detected files containing the same file name will be displayed in the window. Right click on the black area, select “View” and then select “Details”. Now you can see all the information about the files such as file size, modified date, type, etc. Now you need to carefully compare them.

If you find it difficult to compare, right-click the black area again and select “Sort”. You can choose to sort the files by “Type”, “Name”, “Modified date”, and so on. That will help you find the duplicates and then remove them easily.

The shortcomings
Although the above method is very easy to find and remove duplicates, it still has several shortcomings. First of all, you can only search for files by filename. That means that identical files that have different names will not be detected at all.

Also, this method is applicable when you only have multiple files to deal with. If you have a lot of files to manage, you will find it very slow and inefficient. You need to repeat the steps a thousand times to get rid of all the duplicate files on your hard drive.

The best way
If you only have a few files, the method mentioned above is good for you. But if you have a pile of files to deal with, the best way is to use a Windows 7 duplicate file finder. It is much easier and faster than the method mentioned above.