Do you have duplicated files and folders on your Mac?

I have a problem.  I am quite pedantic about backups and keeping things safe to the point my Mac was over run with duplicates without me realising it.

Over the past week I backed up to Time Machine, reformatted the drive, installed El Capitan and restored my files.

Now came the time to tidy them up as I upgraded to 2016 Microsoft Office which included 1TB of storage on OneDrive.  Whilst moving files and folders around I realised there were duplicates that had crept in.

I found the BEST app!  The Duplicate Finder (normally $9.99 but free at the moment, so even better).

Over the years I have tried a few duplicate finders but none were comparable to this one.  Easy to use and accurate as all get out.  The only thing I could wish for is that you could set the parameters to exclude certain file extensions.  It does have a filter once searched, but it would be easier to tell it not to search for example .mp3 and .wav files.

I do highly recommend it, go grab it for yourself and give it a whirl, I'll be surprised if you didn't find it useful.

If you are interested, in my genealogy folder alone there were 976 duplicates!  That freed up 21gb of space and I'll be tackling the rest progressively.  And yes, everything will ultimately be moved to the "cloud" and synced back to Mac.  Then I will be able to access anything on my iPad when away from home.  Chuckling here, I can't help myself, Time Machine backups stay, and so does a synced copy of the essential stuff to an external drive where "older" non essential's and the dubious reside. :D

https://itunes.apple.com/app/the-duplicate-finder/id654667344?mt=12

Seeking James Warren Patterson 1908-1974

Seeking information on descendants of James Warren Patterson b. abt 1908 died 14 Feb 1974, Sydney, late of 59 Cooks Ave, Canterbury and Mary Feeney Brown b. 14 Jan 1911, Sydney and died 3 Oct 2008, Sydney.

What is an .iso file and how can it be used for genealogy?

I don't presume to be an expert around computers but I do like to educate myself and learn when I am challenged.  This happened to me over the past week when my 2010 MacBook Pro started to have real problems when my available space dropped to less than 40gb out of a 500gb drive.

Updated, a few people have asked for complete instructions so I have added them, scroll straight to the bottom.