Delete Duplicate Files to Free Up Disk Space

There comes a time when your hard drive becomes so packed with files, that there is hardly any space left - you can't even defrag because there is not enough free space. When that happens, a lot of people start panicking and uninstalling software, frantically deleting files, and then end up losing a lot of things they need. An easy way to solve the problem and recover some free space is to move some files, like your music, to a removable drive. Also it's possible to keep files like your photos online, using a service like DropSend or Google Docs. But there is an even better way to free up disk space that doesn't require you to move or delete any files that are of some use - all you need to do is find and delete duplicate files. This way you can potentially free up a lot of valuable disk space without having to go through a lot of hassle.If you are a relatively active computer user, then most likely you create a lot of files like MS Word and Excel documents, and download a lot of files - for example songs, videos, photos, and software. And that’s great because that's what using your computer is all about. However, that can lead to a potential problem - duplicate files. They get created because sometimes we forget that we've downloaded something off the Internet, download it again, and save it do a different location. That way you have two identical files one of which can be removed. Duplicate files accumulate over time and can take up a lot of valuable disk space that could be used more productively.Just imagine all those songs that have been downloaded twice, holiday photos uploaded to different folders, documents copied and pasted instead of cut and pasted. They are just sitting on your hard drive and eating up space. So whenever your hard drive gets packed, it's time to find and delete some duplicate files and reclaim the space!There is another reason why you should delete duplicate files. If you have too many of them, they can affect computer performance because your antivirus has to do more work when scanning for infections, and your disk defrag software needs to defrag a lot more files. Thus, every task you perform will be slower because the duplicates are there. That’s why deleting duplicate files will not only free up disk space, but also improve computer performance.Remember to search for duplicate files every once in a while with the help of software like Easy Duplicate Finder and you'll find that you have more free disk space than you thought.