Duplicate files question

[neal]

Mario,
I have 105,000 files in 412 folders and 460GB on the drive. In IM, there is a folder called AMMA_FULL. In this folder, there are 16 subfolders. I want to delete the duplicates that are in AMMA_FULL and leave the duplicates in the subfolders. When I use search for duplicates after selecting all of the images in AMMA_FULL, I get all the duplicates in all the folders. The problem is that I want to delete only the duplicates in the AMMA_FULL which display as the originals and can be deleted only on at a time. How to do this step by step?
Neal

[Mario]

When I understand you correctly, you have files in AMMA_FULL which may have duplicates in one of the sub-folders of AMMA_FULL?
And when there is a duplicate of a file in AMMA_FULL in one of the sub-folders, you want to know and then delete the duplicate in AMMA_FULL?

This is quite easy to do by combining a duplicate search with a folder filter:

1. Select the AMMA_FULL folder and switch the File Window to hierarchical display mode. See The Hierarchical Display Mode (Displaying files in sub-folders, child categories etc.)
You now see the files in AMMA_FULL and its sub-folders, grouped by folder.

2. Click the first file in the first sub-folder. Press <Shift>+<End>. This selects all files from the first file in the first sub-folder to the last file in the last sub-folder.
We want to select all files in the sub-folders to make them originals for the search.



3. Run Search > For Duplicates

4. A Result Window opens. It shows all matches found for the selected files in the sub-folders.
There may be matches in AMMA_FULL and there are maybe matches in the sub-folders (if there are duplicates also outside AMMA_FULL). There may be even matches from totally different folders, in case you have duplicates there as well.

5. In the Filter Panel, enable the Folder Filter and select the AMMA_FULL folder.

Now the Result Window only shows matches found in the AMMA_FULL folder.

[neal]

Mario,
Thanks so much. It worked! What a time saver! I would never have been able to figure that out by myself in a hundred years!
Neal

[Mario]

That's actually a very common way to do this while bringing some order in "unmanaged" collections.
Usually one of the first steps when you move to using a DAM software - to learn about the state of the collection and then organize it, weed out duplicates, detect and fix missing or damaged metadata etc.

If you have not used The Hierarchical Display Mode (Displaying files in sub-folders, child categories etc.) or The Filter Panel or The Search Bar yet, I would recommend you spend a bit of time with these features.
Knowing how to quickly search and filter may save you lots of time.

I'm aware that casual IMatch users don't know about all the powerful features in the software. Perfectly normal. If you have never used the Filter Panel or the hierarchical display mode before, how could you know...?