How to find a list of duplicate entries

Is there a button I could press to find a list of duplicate documents so I can perform “Spring Cleaning” every once in awhile?

If this has been answered before here, can you point me to that?

Anyone?

Unfortunately, there’s no “find duplicates” function yet. It’s on our suggestion list, though, so we may implement it in a future version.

Eric.

Great! Thank you.

See the How to Locate Duplicates to Delete Them thread for a few tips.

Nice pseudo-commitment to adding that functionality to a future version, Eric. :slight_smile:

It seems that this has been on the suggestion list a very long time.

I’ve been trying to understand how (or why) DEVONthink could flag duplicates in some way—which it has to do in order to make the titles bold blue—yet cannot simply display a list of only those files so flagged. It would seem to be the first thing one would want to be able to do with duplicates if one were going to bother marking them at all. It certainly is something I had wanted, and expected to be able, to do.

Is there any word on when this might be implemented?

I’m not anticipating this and other missing types of “meta-information” searching being implemented in v1.x.

The link above to devon-technologies.com/phpBB … php?t=3008
throws a 404 error.

Can we do something with posts like this?

  • Is there a solution yet? (I searched and found a way to locate the duplicate, but I find it tedious and very unpractical) If showing “location” and/or “path” shouldn’t this help?

Additional information:
I followed this post determining location of a duplicate or replicate file
What I find tedious is that:

  1. If you have undeliberate duplicates, you get very cautious, at least I do…
  2. So preferably I’d like to see both files with their respective paths alongside each other. Maybe it’s just me, but in my logic, only this way I can more or less interprete their relative location. (think of a filetree)
  3. This will help me decide which one is to stay.
  4. What I found is that I need to go into ‘Get info’, no problem with that, but then, I need to even click further into instances > dropdown. And then it seems to jump to the information of the other file which is confusing to me.

Maybe I’m missing something, but why can’t we show both paths of the duplicate ‘within’ the Get Info window, or, visualise both Get Info property windows side by side?

Don’t get me wrong, maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t think it is very self explicatory…
Or maybe I’m just too inexperienced at finding duplicates :laughing:

  • could we somehow categorise posts like these, so that at least for a new searcher it’s in a meaningful context? Like “see category of solutions here” or “remedied in version bla bla -> link to features of feature bla bla”

:exclamation: :question:

Added: screenshot duplicates

Well, the post is over 10 years old and discusses version 1 of DEVONthink so I wouldn’t expect that it would have much value today.

If you describe the way that you found to locate a duplicate, and why it is tedious and very unpractical, someone might be able to suggest an alternative that does work for you.

There have been discussions in the past to implement a system that would organize the information here in a way that is more useful and adds context, but few (if any) volunteers have stepped up and offered to assist with the project. Without the members taking ownership, I don’t see it getting much traction.

From my side I’m willing to help with this. While I do agree it’s not a trivial task, as ultimately a / the moderator needs to decide whether the proposed modifications are an acceptable improvement.
I do realise this entails more overhead work than it seems on the surface.

But I think we are all here seeking help or knowledge from fellow users, therefore I only think it logical to give back too…

Try opening the document in its own window, then using the See Also & Classify (Hat icon) pane to work with duplicates. Your open document is the top item on the list, and all the duplicates will (at least should) appear first under the open document. Here you can view the duplicates to confirm that they are indeed duplicates, or move/delete them if needed. The path of the document in the database will appear under the document name. You can Command-R to reveal documents, but there really isn’t any need to do so. The open document will always remain at the top of the list, so you can always click on it to return ‘home’ if you are following a rabbit hole when clicking on additional documents in the list.

The See Also & Classify pane is perhaps the single most important feature of DEVONthink for me. I can accomplish so much from this view-move indexed documents into the database, classify them to another indexed location, move them back out to the Finder, copy and paste text from/into other documents, copy and paste tags to/from documents, replicate documents, and etc., etc.
Screen Shot 2017-07-02 at 2.39.16 PM.png

Subject says it all!
The missing manual by Greg_Jones & The dtpo community :laughing:
Greg, thanks a 1000 times for your explanation.

I obviously need to dig into See Also & Classify :exclamation:

Glad to help! :smiley:

:blush: I am embarrassed to say that the See Also & Classify pane is for me one of those things that I do not use much but I know that if I knew more about its practical application it would, as Greg says, be “the single most important feature of DEVONthink”. Soooo…a big ask to Greg: as an act of kindness please could you write more about how you use this and give us some tips, perhaps in a new topic? (I find reading the help files a little bewildering at times!) I for one and suspect many others, would find this to be most helpful.

My schedule is brutal for the next 4 months, so no promises. However, I’ll keep this in mind and see what I might be able to add, probably a little here and a little there as I think of things.