Duplicates — remove exact copies
Over time the same download, photo, video or export ends up saved in more than one place. The Duplicates window finds files that are exact copies of each other — matched by their actual content, not just the same name — so you can reclaim the space by keeping one copy and moving the rest to the Trash. Everything is reversible.
Open it from the More menu ••• → Duplicates, or just ask Tuhi to "find duplicate files."
One source at a time
A left sidebar lists each place separately, so the analysis is specific to that source:
- This Mac — your Downloads, Documents, Desktop, Movies and Pictures.
- iCloud Drive — the files already downloaded to your Mac. Online-only
files are skipped, so nothing is ever downloaded just to compare it.
- Your cloud accounts — one row per connected account (Google Drive,
S3, Dropbox, OneDrive, and more), each labelled with its real provider.
Duplicates can be cleaned up everywhere — on this Mac, in iCloud Drive, and in your cloud accounts. Storage Studio finds what's duplicated in a cloud account by reading the provider's own file fingerprints, so nothing is ever downloaded to compare it.
Removing a cloud duplicate is held to the same standard as a local one. The copy you're keeping is re-checked in the account itself immediately before anything is removed, so a scan result that has gone stale can never lead to the last copy being deleted. Where your provider has its own Trash, the confirmation tells you the removal is recoverable there; where it doesn't, the removal is treated as permanent and you're asked to confirm that deliberately.
Checking a copy before you remove it
Two files with the same name and the same size are exactly when you want to look before you delete. So each copy is clickable:
- Click the file's name to open it. On this Mac it opens in its
usual app. In a cloud account it opens on the provider's own website.
- Click the folder underneath to go there — in Finder for local
files, or on the provider's website for cloud ones.
What's possible depends on the service. Google Drive and Box open exactly the copy you clicked, which matters because Drive lets two files share a name in the same folder — so we never guess. Dropbox opens the file and folder by their path. OneDrive, and storage like S3, FTP and SFTP, don't give us an address we can open, so those names aren't clickable — hovering tells you why, and you can copy the full path instead.
Scanning
Each source has an Auto-scan switch (on by default) and a Scan now button. Scan now and Stop apply only to the source you're looking at, and every cloud account has its own scan, progress and results — starting one never holds up another.
Scanning this Mac runs only when your Mac is idle, on power and cool, because reading your whole disk competes with your own work. Checking a cloud account is far lighter — it reads a list of file fingerprints over the network, and downloads nothing — so it only waits for a short pause in your typing, and works on battery too. Either way it stays out of the way: one account at a time, at most once every few hours each. When it's waiting rather than working, the status line says why, so a quiet background scan never looks broken.
Results appear as they're found rather than all at the end, so a large account starts showing duplicates within about a minute while it keeps working. Everything is remembered between launches, so the window opens instantly.
Very large accounts
If an account holds an enormous number of files, Storage Studio covers as much as it sensibly can in one pass and says so — "very large account, partial view — scan again to cover more of it" — instead of implying the first look was complete. Google Docs, Sheets and Slides aren't ordinary files and carry no content fingerprint, so they're skipped rather than guessed at.
Choosing what to keep
Duplicate sets are listed largest space-saving first. For each set, Storage Studio marks a recommended copy to keep — the one you're most likely using, based on where it lives and when you last opened or created it — and explains why. Pick the copy to keep, and the rest of the set moves to the Trash. Clean all — keep the best of each does the whole list in one confirmed step.
Files that only look identical because they share storage on disk (copy-on-write clones and links) are shown separately and left alone — removing them wouldn't free any space.
Hands-off with Smart Care
Prefer not to visit the window? Turn on Preferences → Rules → Global overrides → "Let Smart Care clean duplicate files" (on by default). After Smart Care's normal safe run, it will offer to remove the exact-copy files the background scan found, keeping the safest copy of each. You always approve before anything moves to the Trash, and it's always reversible.