Read on to find duplicate files on external hard drives and delete them quickly and easily.

External hard drives, like pen drives, SD cards, etc., are a savior for computer space. Instead of hogging your PC, you can store all your files much more conveniently in an outside drive. However, these drives get cluttered over time with duplicate files that you accidentally add but often forget to delete.

Not deleting the duplicate files leaves no room for other crucial data. Hence, it is essential to find and delete duplicate files on the external hard drive.

If you are unsure about how to find the piled-up duplicate files and delete them from your external drive, read this article with complete attention.

Here we share the best possible ways to find and delete duplicate files on the Windows/Mac external hard drives. Without beating around the bush, let’s start with the same.

Best Methods to Find and Delete Duplicate Files on External Hard Drives

You can apply the following tried and tested ways to find duplicate files on the external hard drive and delete them.

Method 1: Use software to find and delete duplicate files on the external hard drive

Let’s begin with the easiest method to find the dupe files and get rid of them. You can make use of competent and compatible software to locate all the identical files present in your external hard drive and help you remove them. The marketplace has an ocean of such programs. However, below are the ones we like the most. 

1. Auslogics Duplicate File Finder

Another software you can trust to find and delete duplicate files on the external hard drive is Auslogics Duplicate File Finder. It boasts some of the most unique features, such as removal of unnecessary .exe files, Ignoring the list for the files you do not wish to remove, restore accidentally deleted files, etc.

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Also Read: Best Free Duplicate Photo Finder And Cleaner Software

2. Cisdem Duplicate Finder

You can also use Cisdem Duplicate Finder to clean duplicate files from the external hard drive. This software is loaded with a variety of features. For example, categorization of duplicates into three categories, content-based duplicate scanning, etc.

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To know more about the above programs and their alternatives, you can check our posts dedicated to duplicate file removers for Windows and deduplication tools for Mac.

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Method 2: Delete duplicates on the external hard drive with File Explorer (works on Windows computers)

If you wish to find and delete duplicate files on the external hard drive on Windows, you can use File Explorer. Following are the directions to do it.

• Connect the external drive to your computer.
• Launch the drive with File Explorer.
• Organize your files according to their size.
• Go through all the files and identify the duplicates.
• Delete the duplicates you identified in the previous step.

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Method 3: Find and delete duplicate files on the external hard drive using Mac’s Finder

In case you have a Mac device and want to remove file duplicates from the external drive, you can use the Finder tool. Below are the steps to do so.

• Plugin the external hard drive to your Mac computer.
• Open the Finder.
• Choose your external drive from the sidebar of Devices.
• Use the F command to get the search bar.
• Pick Kind from the available search options.
• Select the type of file you want to find and delete. We wish to find duplicate images.
• If you wish to detect a particular file format, select it. We want to find images of all formats.
  
• Sort the detected files by name or any other parameter of your choice.
• Find the duplicates, preview them, and compare them.
• Move the identical files you do not wish to keep to Trash.

Also Read: Best Duplicate Photo Finders & Removers For Mac

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Method 4: Find and delete duplicate files on the external hard drive using Terminal (for Mac)

Mac users can also use the Terminal to identify the duplicate files existing on the external hard drive for manual deletion. Below are the directions to do it.

• Go to your Mac’s Finder.
• Select Applications.
  
• Choose Utility.
• Find and launch Terminal.
  
• Apply the cd command to detect the file duplicates in a folder. For instance, if you wish to find duplicate files in the Images folder, type cd ~/Images and hit the return button.
• Input the following command.
  find . -size 20 \! -type d -exec cksum {} \; | sort | tee /tmp/f.tmp | cut -f 1,2 -d ‘ ‘ | uniq -d | grep -hif – /tmp/f.tmp > duplicates.txt.
• Press the return button.
• Launch the duplicates.txt file to find all the duplicate files and delete them manually.

Also Read: How To Delete Duplicate Photos On Mac | Free Duplicate Photo Finder

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Concluding the ways to find and delete duplicate files on the external hard drive

In this article, we discussed how to find duplicate files on the external hard drive and delete them. You can use any of these methods depending on your choice. However, if you need to delete duplicate photos specifically, we recommend using a Photo Finder to do it with minimal time and effort.

If you know other better ways to find and delete duplicate files on Mac/Windows external drives, kindly drop them in the comments section to help everyone.

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