Re: Specialized disk directory tools

[Lister <lists@coffeehabit.net>]

On 12/9/2025 19:38, Richard Owlett wrote:
> While searching my disk for a one PDF I discovered I had:
>   1. multiple copies of that file.
>   2. copies of similarly named files I was preparing to download.

If you're looking for duplicate (content) files that may have different 
filenames, you need fclones

https://github.com/pkolaczk/fclones

It's not in the .deb archives, but it's trivial to install. It is, 
apparently, in snap, if that's your thing.

Usage:

$ fclones group --cache /path/to/files

You can specify multiple paths to search, and exclude specific paths 
with --exclude.
First run may take a while depending on size, subsequent runs are 
lightning quick with --cache.

Output looks something like this:

431151f7044641b2dcb98d9100b77994, 73042 B (73.0 KB) * 2:
    /home/bob/Downloads/2024-02-19.pdf
    /home/bob/Documents/Bank/2024/Statement_20240219.pdf
b5f4c777b0ad704303d7ee7f5d9cdb4f, 71401 B (71.4 KB) * 2:
    /home/bob/Downloads/2024-07-19.pdf
    /home/bob/Documents/Bank/2024/Statement_20240719.pdf
5ecc491a564f6963995b7492fa387422, 70257 B (70.3 KB) * 2:
    /home/bob/Downloads/2024-05-19.pdf
    /home/bob/Documents/Bank/2024/Statement_20240519.pdf


Hope this helps!