Advanced folder search options

These settings, at the bottom of the Where to look tab, control how the search behaves as it works through your folders.

Skip system folders

Important operating system and program folders are skipped, along with their subfolders. These include:

• Windows - the Windows folder and System32, Program Files, Program Files (x86), ProgramData, and your AppData\Roaming, AppData\Local and AppData\LocalLow folders.
• macOS - /System, /Library, /Applications, /usr, /bin, /sbin, /opt, /private, /etc, /var, /tmp, and your own ~/Applications and ~/Library folders. Cloud storage kept inside ~/Library (iCloud Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive and so on) is still scanned.

Note: On Linux there is no list of system folders yet, so this option has no effect there.

Skip hidden folders

Any hidden folders are skipped, along with their subfolders.

Skip junctions and linked folders

This prevents Duplicate Cleaner from following paths which are actually links to another folder on the same or a different drive (such as junctions, mount points and symbolic links to folders).

This setting helps prevent the situation where the same folder is scanned under two different path names, creating false duplicates.

Skip symbolic link files

A symbolic link has no content of its own, so it would otherwise be scanned as an empty file.

Skip files/folders in Ignore list

This option requires Duplicate Cleaner Pro.

The scan skips any files or folders which are on the Ignore list. Click the ✎ button next to this setting to view or edit the list.

Scan inside archive/zip files (treat as folders)

Not yet available. Scanning inside archives is not available in this version.

When available, the contents of archive files (such as .zip) will be searched as part of the scan, and listed as subfolders in the results.

Subfolder filter

Tick Subfolder filter to filter the subfolders that are scanned by their names, using masks separated by semicolons (* and ? are wildcards):

• Included - Only subfolders whose names match are scanned. Leave it blank to scan all subfolders.
• Excluded - Subfolders whose names match are skipped, along with everything in them.

For example, Excluded .git;node_modules;*cache* skips source control, package and cache folders wherever they are.

Find duplicate folders

This option requires Duplicate Cleaner Pro.

After the files are matched, Duplicate Cleaner also looks for folders whose contents are duplicated elsewhere. The results are shown on the Duplicate folders tab.