How Do I Scan Hard Drive for Duplicate Files and Remove Them?
If you want to scan hard drive for duplicate files, this passage will share you the methods. You can learn to scan a single or multiple drives for duplicate files here.
By Irene / Updated on July 8, 2025
You probably know the disadvantages of having a large number of duplicate files taking up space on your hard drive. Yes, it can slow down the performance of your hard drive, consume storage space, and make it difficult to find the correct or latest files. So, it's time to scan your drive for duplicate files and clean them up! Wondering how to do that? This passage will provide you with guidance.
How to scan for duplicate files on hard drives?
Here are 2 methods to guide you scan hard drives for duplicate files. If you want to scan a single hard drive, the first method is suitable. If you want to scan multiple drives for duplicate files, way 2 can be effective.
Way 1. Manually scan hard drive for duplicate files with File Explorer
To scan drive for duplicate files manually is not a complex task. You can use the Windows File Explorer program for this purpose. However, this option is more suitable for scanning smaller amounts of data; otherwise, it can be time-consuming. By the way, if you have specific requirements, such as identifying similar-sized files, this method may be limited, and it's better to seek help from a professional duplicate file finder.
Step 1. Connect your external/USB hard drive to the computer and open File Explorer by pressing the Windows key and the E key together on your keyboard.
Step 2. Navigate to your USB Drive, in this example, we'll use H:
Step 3. Organize the files by sorting them by Name, Date, or Size.
Step 4. Examine the files side by side to find duplicates. Then, look for similar files by searching its name, such as "TV Tool".
Repeat these steps until you've deleted all the similar files from your external or USB hard drive.
Way 2. Scan multiple drives for duplicate files and effectively clear them
Manually scanning your hard drive for duplicate files may not be an effective solution for expanding your drive's storage space. If your goal is to maintain organized and clutter-free hard drives, the method mentioned above can be quite time-consuming and exhausting due to the need to carefully scrutinize files.
Now, consider using software to scan for duplicate files, such as AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup. This tool can simultaneously scan multiple drives for duplicate files and offers various scanning options. After finding the files, you can filter files by type and apply search criteria like file size or identical names and decide which duplicates to keep and which to safely delete.
What’s more, it even provides safety measures to protect essential system files and accidental file deletion recovery. All of these can make it easy to maintain your computer clean and fast.
AOMEI Partition Assistant for CleanupThe Best Windows Disk Partition Manager and PC Optimizer
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant for Cleanup. Click the "Find Duplicate Files" tab. You can either click "Scan Now" to start the scan of your system C: drive. Or, click "Custom Scan" to manually select paths to be scanned. (Here, we take the "Custom Scan" as an example.)
Step 2. After clicking "Custom Scan", all local and external drives on your PC will be displayed. You can also click the "Add Path" button, and then a browse folder window will pop up. So you can add more paths on this PC, like Desktop, Downloads, and other folder paths.
Step 3. Once necessary paths are added, you can click the "Scan Now" button to start the scan process.
Step 4. The scan process might take time. After the scan is complete, all duplicate files will be listed. You can click the button behind to locate them.
Step 5. You can either manually select duplicate files, or click the "Smart Select" button to automatically select unnecessary duplicate files to delete.
Tips: If the "Smart Select" is ticked, only the oldest duplicate file will be unticked. It means that all duplicate files except the oldest one will be ticked to delete. (The oldest file means the file that was created first. This file will not be deleted. All other duplicate files are conside red copies of the oldest file. )
If you manually select all copies of duplicate files, you will get a pop-up warning window to keep at least one copy of the duplicate files. If you indeed want to delete all copies of duplicate files, you can click "OK" so all copies of duplicate files will be selected to delete.
After unnecessary duplicate files are selected, please click the "Clean Now" button to start the deletion.
Step 6. The deletion might take time. After the process is finished, the selected files will be deleted, and you will get a cleaning completed window displaying how much data you deleted in total.
Conclusion
It is easy to scan hard drive for duplicate files by choosing a powerful tool. If you want to maintain high performance, you can choose AOMEI Partition Assistant. It shares more functions like Migrate OS, Allocate Free Space, PC Cleaner, and so on. For Windows Server users, it provides AOMEI Partition Assistant Server Edition.
