Finding duplicate files is not working

Question / Problem

Why are my duplicate files not found by the duplicate search of TreeSize?

Answer / Solution

There are a few reasons why this can happen. The two most common ones are:

1. The duplicate files do not have the same MD5 checksum

2. There is an issue accessing the selected search path(s)

Regarding #1: The standard setting for the comparison method of the duplicate search is "File Content", which means the program compares the MD5 checksum of each file to determine if the files are identical. A way to find these files where the checksums don't match is to use "Name and size" as comparison method for example. This way, only the name and size have to match, but this is less accurate than the default setting.

Regarding #2: If TreeSize can't access the search path, it can't find any duplicates even if they exist and use the same MD5 checksum. This is indicated by an error on the bottom of the program window which you can click on. It should then tell you that the access to the path was denied.

In this case, please start the program as administrator as this solves the issue most of the time.