Per this thread I have moved all of my 6,700+ research files to iCloud and out of DT. I knew that I would end up with some duplicates.
I’m looking for a good app to run on my MBP for finding and managing these duplicates. Any suggestions? Thanks!
For comparing folders, Beyond Compare works well.
For finding duplicates wherever they may be in a folder hierarchy, Gemini is adequate. NB. I never trust their auto flag for deletion, and probably wouldn’t trust anyone’s.
That’s unfortunate. That could take a very long time! 
I like gemini. Fast compare and you get to go through all the results if you want to manually confirm or choose which files to keep.
I have found that results from various duplicate-finding apps can vary greatly. I have found that I have the greatest insight/control using the app Beyond Compare. As with @JohnAtl, I do not trust apps that auto flag supposedly duplicate results for one-click auto-deletion.
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JJW
Thanks everyone. I’m going to give Beyond Compare a look. Hmmm, that name sounds like my life’s theme. 
Just to give a different opinion, because I just went thru this exercise.
In Finder, I just did a lookup of all files that were documents, excluding media. Sorted by size, which for some reason groups duplicate files together. Then I deleted the duplicates from there. Total files were in excess of 200K.
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That is a great suggestion.
Files can be the same size with different content.
thhou tousthh24th 234s234h 23nthnt 2 onn2 42sss234
(second line same size as above)
This would be true of files that you’ve edited to correct transposed letters, mistakes of punctuation, or wholesale edits that workout to the same size, or in the case above, a file that has been corrupted.
Agreed but it may at least be another starting point, along of course with sorting by name. A laborious process but in the end, I’ll have everything cleaned up.
This is 6 years late but I discovered this tool based on my search for folder differences and synchronisation in Google Search and Gemini replied with this recommendation. It is supposed to be an old tool and the developer made it open sourced in 2025. However, if it is an old tool, it was not talked much or recommended much in MPU. I just wanted to get the hive mind before trying new tools because, these days with vibe coding, it’s better to be sure especially when using tools that work on files, folders and directories. So, guys, yay or nay for Visual Differ?
I’m the author of VisualDiffer and just wanted to clarify.
If by “old” you mean it’s out of date, then that’s not true. The Swift port was released open source in 2025, and today the project is actively updated. I promptly respond to bug reports and add features.
If by “old” you mean aesthetically pleasing, then I have to admit it’s a bit neglected. I’m a programmer, not a graphic designer, so I prefer something that works over something that looks good, but that’s only because I’m not capable of combining the two.
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Thanks for writing. By old I mean “been around for some time” like Super Duper or Default Folder X. So it’s should be popular and recommended by old timers especially in MPU, which I didn’t find much discussion about. That’s what I meant.
Btw, I’m using VisualDiffer and I like it. I like that when comparing two folders, you leave blank space at one pane to indicate where the files on the other pane should be. That’s a very clever visual indication of the differences between two panes.
I also like how you color blue in the folder for changes, although I find that the blue in Light mode is too dark (almost black/grey) so I ended up using VisualDiffer in Dark mode instead. That blue is bright and easy to discern.
You’re right, the color schemes are a bit confusing. I use dark mode and chose the colors based on my vision. The colors are customizable, but I’ve never documented how. I’ll have to add this option to the settings panel someday.
If you’d like, we could open a discussion here or on GitHub and choose a better palette. We’re off-topic here.
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Sure we can do it off topic in GitHub. It’s a bit late here for me so I’ll contact you on GitHub tomorrow. Thank you.
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+1
My comment is not to your specific app. It is rather to the implicit inverse statement that, if an app works, it does not have to look good.
Looking good certainly as an aesthetic metric can surely take a back seat to working correctly as a usability metric. But … looking bad can be a serious usability hindrance. Especially when looking bad means serious discernible issues. In this respect, take care especially when choosing font styles and sizes as well as color schemes. For color especially, much can be learned simply by spending a few solid moments reading about and deeply understanding how to be most effective in selecting colors to maintain readability for all the different types of color blindness. Yea, sure, you choose a red print on a blue background because it is supposed to mean something to the user … But can a red-blue challenged person see it well enough (let alone someone working with a poorly lit monitor and/or with strong astigmatism)? Now repeat this visual review exercise with red fonts on pink backgrounds or blue fonts on azure blue backgrounds.
Engineers may not be elegant ballroom dancers (and I know by experience). But good engineers can chart all the steps to avoid when wanting to dance well, sometimes to millimeter precision.
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JJW
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I agree with everything, a button that’s too long looks ugly but doesn’t make an app unusable (at least let’s hope 
) like a color that’s too dark or has the wrong contrast with the background.
I always try (not that I always succeed) to do two things:
- align with the OS UI, they’ve already done all the possible studies and the color combinations should be user-friendly; if you change the font from the OS, the app should pick up that change
- allow the user to customize fonts and colors as much as possible
Specifically for VisualDiffer, while it was easy to let the user choose the font and size they prefer, it wasn’t the same for colors.
Colors are a fundamental part of the app, and even though I tried to find meaningful and respectful combinations for everyone, I didn’t always succeed; consulting WCAG just confused me.