Can Windows Find Duplicate Files? Here’s How You Can Do It Easily

Duplicate files are more common than you can think. As your system ages, it inevitably accumulates older versions of files such as documents, photos, videos, and software. Not only do these consume the precious storage space, but they can even make the system slower. The question comes up quite often as to whether or not Windows can find duplicate files.

Today, we break down various ways to find and delete duplicate files on a Windows-based computer before introducing a potential solution.

Can Windows Find Duplicate Files Natively?

By default, Windows does not offer a tool that can search for duplicate files. Previous File Explorer features provide ways to filter or sort files by date, name, or size, but it doesn’t provide you with a side-by-side option for comparing files or seeing their differences in any way.

For those of you still asking yourself, can Windows find duplicate files without any 3rd party tools? Yes, only by your own hands, and that's neither convenient nor even possible without a living hell of work.

Method 1: Manually Using File Explorer

You can manually attempt to locate and delete duplicate photos using the following steps:

Open File Explorer and navigate to the directory that you believe duplicates are in. Name or Size Sorting—This can provide you with a visual comparison of files and folders. Enable Details view – This will display file Size, Type, and Date modified. Find in View > Details. Visually Compare Files – Compare file names, extensions, and file sizes with your own eyes. Utilize the Preview Pane – I use this for documents and images to quickly review what the file contains.

If you have a small folder, that is fine, but if you have a big directory structure, that is a pain. But back to the question of whether “can Windows find duplicate files?” — not effectively.

Method 2: Using Command Prompt

Command Prompt is a simple way for some advanced users:

Open Command Prompt: Run cmd from the start menu. Run the following command:

dir /S /A:-D /O:GN > filelist. txt

This generates a list of files with their sizes and name; you may want to look at the file yourself. Open filelist.txt in Notepad and let's begin comparing file names and sizes.

This method is great, but it is not fast and doesn’t show you exact duplicates unless you are obsessive about it.

Method 3: A Smart Solution to Detect and Remove Duplicate Files

First, let’s answer the question once more: can Windows find duplicate files? Yes – SysTools Duplicate File Finder makes this very simple & easy.

Why Use this Professional Toolkit?

This tool provides know where you have to click and find to reproduce contacts. Here’s how to use it:

Download and install the mentioned utility on your Computer. Start the Software and navigate to the drive or folder you want to scan. Set filters – Filter files by type (images, videos, documents, etc.), size, or date. Browse Directory - Click “Scan” and find duplicate files in seconds. Preview & Delete – Results are displayed clearly. Pick all or any duplicates to delete them safely.

Method 4: Use Windows PowerShell

A more advanced way of achieving this than by Command Prompt involves using PowerShell scripts:

Launch PowerShell as an Administrator.

Run a script like:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Group-Object -Property Length | Where-Object { $. Count -gt 1 } | ForEach-Object { $. Group }

This chunks files of the same size into a list of potentially duplicated files.