Saving, exporting and importing scans

Overview

Duplicate Cleaner keeps every open scan - its settings, results and marks - between sessions. When you close the program, all your open scans are saved, and they are there again next time you start it. You don’t need to do anything to keep your work.

You can also export a scan to a scan file (.dcscan). This is a “snapshot” of the scan at that moment, which you can keep wherever you like. It is useful if:

• You have settings you want to reuse later.
• You want to put a scan to one side, close it, and come back to it another day.
• You want a copy of complex marking to roll back to.
• You want to move a scan to another computer.

Saving a scan

Save scan, on the Save / export button at the top right of a scan, saves the scan’s settings and marks straight away, rather than waiting for the program to close. The Actions column of the Open scans list on the Home page has the same options.

Exporting a scan

• Export scan… - Saves the whole scan to a .dcscan file: the criteria, filters and locations, plus the results - the duplicate files, remaining files and duplicate folders - and all your marks and protected folders.
• Export settings only… - Saves just the scan’s settings (criteria, filters and locations), without any results. Use this to keep a scan setup you want to reuse.

What is not saved in a scan file:

• Program settings (as on the Settings page), such as filter presets, file types and the theme.
• The Ignore list.
• Virtual folders, though a scan can refer to them.

The scan stays open after exporting, and is not connected to the file - later changes to the scan don’t change the file. Export again to update it.

Importing a scan

On the Home page, click Import scan and choose a .dcscan file. The scan opens as a new scan, with the name it was exported with. The Recently exported drop-down lists your last exported scans, so you can bring one back quickly - a gear icon marks a settings-only file.

The file you import is copied, so working in the scan never changes the file itself.

You may see these messages when importing:

• This scan was saved by a newer version of Duplicate Cleaner. - Update Duplicate Cleaner to open it.
• This scan was saved on (another operating system). - The scan still opens, but its folders and files may not be found on this computer - for example a Windows D:\Photos folder on a Mac.
• This file is not a Duplicate Cleaner scan, or it is damaged.

Note: Duplicate Cleaner 5 saved scans can’t be imported.

Closing scans

Closing a scan discards its results and marks. Export it first if you want to keep them. See Setting up a scan.