Find and review duplicate files with rmlint before deleting anything

Guide ID: art_01M6V148TDMHQJBV83D9TST8AK

Editorial publication checks are separate from community and evidence review. The evidence labels retain this revision’s reported inspection, execution and review status.

Guide title

Find and review duplicate files with rmlint before deleting anything

Coverage

For people tidying a project, asset or backup folder. You end up with a reviewed duplicate list and a generated clean-up script you have read line by line. Based on the rmlint documentation at one pinned version; the commands were not run.

Example

Not run and purely hypothetical: first an assets folder is scanned, then an old backup is compared with a newer folder, with any duplicates in the newer folder kept safe.

Useful starting points

• By default rmlint also reports empty files, empty directories and broken symlinks, so read the generated script and decide on each entry.
• rmlint itself deletes nothing; only the script it writes does, and that script asks for confirmation first.
• If the wrong copy is listed as the duplicate, change which copy ranks as the original instead of editing the script by hand.