Protection

The Protection tab within the Global Preferences window provides an additional layer of safety to duplicate file management operations executed through Duplicate File Detective.

Warnings

Duplicate File Detective provides additional protection by warning you if you're about to move or delete a file that violates certain safety constraints. For example, if you produce a duplicate file report, mark one or more duplicate files, and then click the Delete button in the Results Processing section of the application Ribbon Bar, the resulting Duplicate File Manager window will use the Protection options to determine whether or not you're doing something potentially unsafe.

The following warning options are available (all are recommended):

• Warn when deleting one or more files of any type - A general confirmation before any deletion takes place.
• Warn if any duplicate file group has all of its entries marked - Guards against removing every copy of a file, leaving no original behind.
• Warn when moving or deleting system files
• Warn when moving or deleting read-only files
• Warn when sending files with path lengths exceeding 255 chars to the Recycle Bin - Very long paths may not be recyclable (see Moving, Zipping & Deleting).
• Warn when zipping or moving files to a volume that's low on disk space
• Warn when moving or deleting protected file types - See Protected File Types below.

Such warnings, if applicable, will be issued after you click the Go button in the Duplicate File Manager window.

Protected File Types

Protected file types are represented by an editable list of file extensions, each of which represents a file type that probably should not be manipulated by any duplicate file management process.

To manage the list, enter a file type extension (e.g. ".exe") and use the Add, Replace, and Delete buttons. The Save Protected File Types and Load Protected File Types links allow the list to be exported to (and re-imported from) a file - useful for sharing a standard list across machines.

Note: By default, the file name matching section of the Search Filtering panel will exclude protected file types from duplicate file search operations. Disable the appropriate switch if you wish to search for duplicates of these file types.