Link Duplicate Files

The Duplicate File Manager (shown below) provides the ability to link moved (or deleted duplicate) files to an original. This feature can help provide users with a seamless transition after the de-duplication process is complete.

Here's the problem duplicate file linking solves. You reclaim gigabytes by removing redundant copies, and then discover that something depended on one of them - a shortcut, a script, a media library, an application looking for an asset in a specific folder. Linking makes that a non-event. As each marked duplicate is moved or deleted, Duplicate File Detective leaves a link in its place that resolves to the first unmarked file in the same duplicate group. The disk space is recovered; the path still resolves.

Duplicate File Detective offers a number of different duplicate file linking options, including shell shortcuts, hard links, and symbolic links. Shell shortcuts (.lnk files) are the most broadly compatible choice, and can optionally carry a "Created by Duplicate File Detective" comment so they're easy to identify (and find) later. NTFS hard links are the most transparent option - applications see an entirely normal file, with no shortcut semantics to handle - though the link and its target must live on the same volume. NTFS symbolic links can span volumes, and typically require that Duplicate File Detective be run as an administrator.

Linking pairs naturally with the rest of the move, delete, and archive options, and it respects the same safeguards - if every file in a duplicate group has been marked, there is no surviving target to link to, and the option simply does nothing rather than creating a broken link. And because Duplicate File Detective can track NTFS hard links during comparison, files you have already de-duplicated this way won't be reported back to you as duplicates on the next scan.