SimilarImages

SimilarImages is a free tool to help you remove duplicate images from any size or format. I use this tool to delete any duplicate wallpapers I have, since I have over 8000 of them (mostly from allwallpapersfree.org) in combination with a Wallpaper ShifterI made. There is also a program called VisiPics that I used to find duplicate images. SimilarImages however can find duplicates a lot faster and seems to be more accurate than VisiPics. Also SimilarImages keeps a database of file signatures to make future comparing even faster. One downside of SimilarImages though is that it lets you review every image one by one rather than present you with a list of similar images and auto mark the ones with a smaller size for you. SimilarImages does have an auto mark feature, but by default it is not enabled. To enable this you have to go to the tab “Semi-automated deletion” and change the order of the rules. Because “None” is on top no file will be marked for auto deletion. I would recommend to put “lower resolution” on top, followed by “smaller file” and then followed by “Left File”. This will mark the low resolution files for deletion. If you want you can also enable “Auto-delete 0-files”. This will auto delete (according to the rules you setup) one of the duplicates that is close to exact similarity (difference near 0). The rest will be auto tagged and presented to you one by one as it finds them.

The image compare window might be a bit confusing at first. If you have set up semi-automated deletion then all you have to do here is check if the images really are similar and click on the button with the red box and white arrow pointing down. This will auto delete the low resolution / smaller file size / left side(depending on the rules you set up) image. On the top of the window is a similar red icon with white arrow like there is on the button. This shows what image is to be deleted, so clicking the button will delete that image and keep the other. You can also manually delete an image by clicking on the red X button. The double yellow notepad icon will copy the selected image over the other one while keeping it’s original filename. The button with the red circle will delete both images. If the images are not similar then simply click on Next. This will also mark the combination to be skipped next time as they are not similar. The FastStep button will skip all the other files with the same name but a higher number (for example you are on image1.jpg and the files go on to image34.jpg, clicking on FastStep will skip image2.jpg to image34.jpg).