AllDup 4 finds visually similar images

Freeware duplicate file finder AllDup has hit version 4.0 with some major additions and updates.

The program can now detect visually similar pictures in the image formats BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG and TIF, even if they’ve been flipped, rotated, reduced in quality or colors, or marginally cropped. Enhanced audio file scanning allows the program to find duplicate FLAC and MP3 files, even if they have different tags.

The program can now optionally compare files by parts of their names, so for example MyPic.jpg would now match MyPic-1.jpg and MyPic-2.jpg.

There’s new support for specifying multiple file filters in a single scan. For example: *.bmp|*.jpg|*.jpeg|*.png

Search by file content is up to 50 percent faster than the previous version.

There are handy new options to help you deal with the search results. You can choose to view only groups with more than a set number of files, for instance, or you can run more complex searches on the file names -- now with wild card support -- to find the duplicates you need.

This release also gets a major UI revamp, with new icons, reorganized toolbars, and a choice of 19 color themes.

And there are all the features you had in previous editions: duplicate file finding by name, size, contents, dates, attributes and more; many filtering options to view or select particular files; and the ability to delete, copy, move or rename your chosen duplicates, optionally creating hard links or shortcuts back to the original files.

There’s just one potential problem for existing users: any previous stored search results, profiles and program settings won’t be carried across to the new version. Manually make whatever notes you need before updating.

All this power does come with a price: just about every dialog, button and right-click menu leads you on to even more options and settings. But there’s a good Help file if you need it, and overall AllDup is an excellent file management tool.

AllDup is a freeware package for Windows XP and later.