- 01
Choose what to scan
Point DuplicateDuster at a folder, a whole drive, or several — the scan is recursive, so every subfolder is included automatically.
- 02
Enumerate files
Every file in scope is listed. Nothing is read or modified at this stage — this pass just builds the worklist.
- 03
Hash in parallel
Each file's content is hashed with SHA-256, spread across worker threads so the work uses more than one CPU core at once.
- 04
Group by hash
Files sharing an identical hash are grouped together — these are confirmed, byte-for-byte duplicates of each other.
- 05
Review every group
You see each duplicate group with file paths, sizes and dates, and choose which copy to keep. At least one file in every group is always preserved.
- 06
Remove the rest
Confirmed duplicates are deleted normally, or — if you choose — securely erased with a three-pass overwrite, filename scramble and timestamp reset before removal.
Hashing that uses every core you have.
Scanning is parallelised across worker threads, so a folder with hundreds of thousands of files doesn't sit on one CPU core.
Point it at one folder or an entire drive — every subfolder is scanned, no manual navigation required.
Duplicates are matched on content, so the same file living on two different drives is still caught.
See exactly what 'secure erase' guarantees.
And what it doesn't — stated plainly, including the SSD caveat most tools leave out.