Detwinner documentation
Table of contents
Selecting folders
To search for duplicate files, you should define the folders to search within, and (optionally) customize search options.
The folder selections can be done by the folder tree in the left pane of Detwinner main window.
Just check the boxes next to the directories of interest.
Customizing search options
Detwinner search options are presented by so-called presets. Each preset holds the following options:
- list of scan masks;
- list of ignore masks;
- list of protected folders;
- settings for ignoring files by their size, last write date, and attributes (hidden or system).
Detwinner initially comes with 6 presets:
- all files;
- documents;
- images;
- music;
- photos;
- similar images;
- videos.
You can change these presets, delete them or add you own ones.
Detwinner allows two modes of search: exact duplicates and similar images. The first option ensures that files are absolutely equal by their binary content. The second one searches for image files that are similar by the specified level (this option is labeled as Similarity and has range between 1% - different images and 100% - equal images).
Scan and ignore masks
These are the lists of masks defined by standard Windows wildcards, that are used to narrow down the search results.
* wildcard matches zero or more characters, ? wildcard matches any single character.
Wildcard examples:
- *.* — all files;
- *.doc — all files with .doc extension (document.doc, content.doc);
- dsc*.jpg — all files with .jpg extension with name which start with dsc (dsc_0101.jpg, dsc.jpg);
- image??.png — all files with .png extension with name image followed by two characters (imageab.png, image01.png).
The main idea of scan and ignore masks is as follows. The duplicate files will be search among the files that match any mask from the scan masks list and do not match any of the ignore masks list.
For example, if your scan mask list consists of single *.bmp mask, and the ignore mask list is empty, then only *.bmp files will be checked for duplicates in the selected folders.
And if your ignore mask list consists of single *.bmp mask, and the scan mask list is empty, then all *.bmp files will be ignored in the selected folders.
Note that ignore masks are applied after scan masks, so if you define mask *.bmp in both lists, nothing will be found.
Adding and removing masks can be done by clicking the corresponding buttons over the mask lists.
You can activate or deactivate the use of scan and ignore masks by toggling the appropriate checkboxes.
Protected folders
The list of folders to protect defines the folders that will not be searched for duplicates. By default, these are Windows system folders, but you can add your own ones (for example, some backup folder that contains duplicates with regard to you working folder, but you don't want to delete them) or remove existing.
Managing protected folders is done in the same way as for scan/ignore masks.
Other settings
You can ignore files with size less or greater than certain integer value. To do this, activate the needed setting by ticking the appropriate checkbox, type the size value and select the unit(B — byte, KB — kilobyte, MB — megabyte, GB — gigabyte) from the dropdown list.
Files can also be ignored with regard to their last write date. Activating this feature is done in the same way: check the appropriate box and select the needed date and time.
Hidden and system files are ignored by default, but you can change this by ticking the checkboxes, as always.
Managing presets
You can quickly switch between various search options by selecting different presets in the presets dropdown list.
You can add your own presets by clicking 
Add new preset button next to the presets dropdown list, or remove existing ones by clicking 
Delete preset button in the same place.
The (Default) preset cannot be deleted. You can customize it if you need to perform search with some specific options but do not want to save them as a new preset.
Starting search
When you are done with settings, just click 
button to initiate duplicates search!
Search results
The search results window consists of:
- action panel with Select, Delete, and New search buttons;
- duplicates list;
- preview pane.
Working with duplicates list
Duplicates list shows the list of duplicate groups, and each such group contains the list of equal duplicate files (for exact duplicates search mode) or similar images (for similar images search mode).
If you have searched for similar images, the duplicates list will also have two additional columns: one displays image resolution, and another shows the actual number of colors used in the image.
When you click on file in the list, its preview is shown in the bottom pane. The previewer currently supports text files and images (other files are shown as binary).
Right-clicking the file popups the context menu that contains of three items: Open (opens file with the default program or runs it if it is executable), Show in folder (opens the folder that contains the file in the explorer and selects it), Properties (show file properties).
Right-clicking the duplicate group popups the context menu that manages its selection rule.
To expand or collapse all duplicate groups, use the appropriate button in the action pane.
By ticking the checkbox next to the file or group you mark it for deletion. You can select files manually or use smart selection feature, as described below.
Preview pane
Each duplicate group can have so-called Default preview file. It is indicated by small yellow lock next to file name and is always shown in the left side of preview pane when selecting files from its duplicate group. This feature is needed for comparing two files visually and is useful when you are searching for similar images. For example, you can select some reference (etalon) image and compare the other images of group against it. Initially the first file in each group is marked as Default. To change this, click a small yellow lock near it and you’ll see the small opened grey locks near each file in this group. Click the gray lock near the file that you’d like to make default. In this case the other locks will disappear again, and the one near default file will be yellow and locked.
Smart selection
Smart selection feature allows selecting files automatically by the certain rule.
Possible rules are:
- Keep the first in group / Keep the last in group — select all files in each group except one that is the first or the last in it;
- Keep the newest / Keep the oldest — select all files in each group except the one with the most recent or the oldest write date;
- Keep with the shortest filename / Keep with the longest filename — select all files in each group except the one with the shortest or longest name;
- Keep with the shortest path / Keep with the longest path — select all files in each group except the one with the shortest or longest path to containing folder;
- Keep with the highest resolution / Keep with the lowest resolution (applicable for similar images search only) - select all images in each group except the one with the highest or lowest resolution;
- Keep with the greatest number of colors used / Keep with the smallest number of colors used (applicable for similar images search only) - select all images in each group except the one with the greatest or smallest actual number of colors used.
You can access these rules by clicking the Select button in the action panel (in this case selection will be applied to all duplicate group), or through the popup menu of individual duplicate group (in this case selection will be applied to the selected duplicate group only).
Selection with regular expressions
Duplicate files can be selected for deletion with regular expressions. The regular expression selection rules are used for this.
Regular expression selection rule consists of selection mode, object to match and list of regular expressions.
To manage regular expression selection rules, click Select by regex… button in the action pane. Here you can add, change and remove the rules that used for selection duplicate files with regular expressions.
Regular expression rule can be applied using one of four selection modes:
- New selection — the resulting selection will consist of duplicate files that matched the current regular expressions rule;
- Add to selection — the resulting selection will consist of currently selected duplicate files and duplicate files that matched the current regular expression rule;
- Subtract from selection — the resulting selection will consist of files that are currently selected but didn't match the current regular expression rule;
- Intersect with selection — the resulting selection will consist of files that are currently selected and matched the current regular expression rule.
Selection mode can be chosen from the Mode dropdown list.
Match object defines what exactly is matched with regular expressions. This can be:- Full path;
- Folder path;
- File name.
For example, if we have file d:\files\file.txt, then full path for it is d:\files\file.txt, folder path — d:\files, and file name — file.txt.
Match object can be chosen from the Match dropdown list.
Regular expressions can be added or removed to the list through the appropriate buttons, and changed by double clicking.
Clicking ellipsis button while editing regular expression brings out the list of commonly used regular expressions (for matching file with particular extension, on particular disk or with particular file name). After selecting one of these items, the appropriate regular expression will appear in the edit box, and its part that needs to be changed will be selected. For example, if you select File with name item, the regular expression will be
.*?\\FILENAME(\.[^.]*$|$)
and you should change FILENAME to the value that you actually need.
If the regular expression that you've entered is invalid, you will receive the appropriate message. In this case change the regular expression so it is valid, or press Esc keyboard key to cancel adding regexp.
You can find information on regular expressions, for example, here: https://www.regular-expressions.info/reference.html
After clicking OK button, the currently selected rule will be applied to all duplicate groups (if you opened Select by regexp window from Select button menu), or to the selected duplicate group (if you opened Select by regexp window from the duplicate group context menu).
Be careful when selecting duplicate files with regular expressions. The files that you actually need can be matched by regexps and marked for deletion.
Deleting duplicates
When files are selected, you may wish to delete them.
Currently, three methods of deletion are supported:
- permanently;
- to recycle bin;
- to backup folder.
You can select the deletion method by clicking the Delete button in the action panel.
It is assumed that you would like to leave at least one copy of the file in each group, so if any group is selected to delete entirely, the confirmation prompt will be shown. Choose Yes if you really want to delete all files in group, or No otherwise.
Before starting the delete process, you may want to tick a Delete empty folders check box in the delete progress dialog box. This will instruct the program to delete folders that became empty after deleting duplicates in them. Click Start button to initiate deleting.
When deleting to the backup folder, the prompt to choose it will be shown. By default, the previously chosen backup folder will be selected here.
The structure of the backup folder repeats the path to the duplicate files, and the disk name is represented by the corresponding folder. For example, if the path to duplicate file is d:\folder\duplicate.txt, and the backup folder in d:\backup, then after backup this file will be in d:\backup\d\folder\duplicate.txt.
If file with the same name as being deleted one exists in the backup folder, the overwrite prompt will be shown. It offers several options:
- Overwrite — the file in the backup folder will be overwritten with the file that is being deleted;
- Skip — the duplicate file will not be backed up
- Rename to — you can type here new name of the file or check Auto generate box to allow Detwinner generating new names for conflicting files automatically. The auto generated names will consist of delete date in square brackets and the actual duplicate file name (for example, abacus.png will be renamed to [2011-08-20] abacus1.png).
All these options except renaming by user can be applied to the further conflicts by checking Do this for all further conflicts box.
Pressing Cancel in the overwrite prompt will stop the deleting process.
Remember that you should have permissions to delete selected files. This may require running program in administrating mode. If Detwinner is unable to delete some file, the appropriate message will be shown next to this file in the Remarks column of the duplicates list.
Checking for updates
The check for program updates can be triggered from the About window - just click Check for updates button. If update is available, you will get the link to download it.