Duplicate Detective helps Mac users locate duplicate files and then delete them to free up space. Very simple to use, it takes moments to install. On launch you will see a utility window. Drag and drop the folder that you need to scan and Duplicate Detective finds if there are any duplicates. The utility looks for some exact duplicates for your files. It checks the hash strings for the files to see if there are any duplicated items.

If you want to scan the entire hard drive, it may take some time. It is usually better to scan folders individually if you suspect that they might have duplicate files. This way, results are much faster as well. The good thing is that the utility keeps sending you messages like ‘how has your day been?’ etc. letting you know that it hasn’t frozen and is just taking a little longer to scan your hard disk volume. A little but handy function for sure. When the scan is completed, the application lets you know about the number of files that were scanned in a folder, the files that have been duplicated and also the space that these duplicate files consume.

The approach is very simple and so is the interface. Filter your lists and safety measures make sure that you do not blindly delete everything. If you do delete something by mistake, it can always be recovered from the Trash can. It is one of the few mindful cleaning apps that provide good cleaning options rather than deleting everything that it can find. Not the best out there, but worth a try for being simple and effective.