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I recently put all my files in Google Drive on my desktop and my laptop.

When I started syncing files, i found out there was twice as much data as it was before only to see all folders being duplicates...

I think it's because my 2 computers sent all the files at the same time (as both folders on both computers were mirors exept for the timestamp of the files)

Is there a way to do a smart merge and remove duplicates?

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  • Google Drive sync between the web and the computer folder. So do you see all the duplicate files in the two computers? Or the folders still show only one of the duplicate files? – Nir Sep 20 '14 at 10:51
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    I don't believe there's going to be any way to do this through the web interface. You should probably get one of the many tools for your OS that finds and manages duplicate files. Once you clean up your Google Drive folder on your hard drive the web interface should be left in a better state. – ale Sep 20 '14 at 14:40
  • Yes, I think I understand why I got duplicates. Since I have 30 GB of data on GDrive, I decided to copy and paste the whole data from a computer to another. Google Drive (on Windows) did not manage to understand they were the same files. So it build duplicates. I went on this website insynchq.com and installed it so it could better sync my data. – Simon Paquet Sep 20 '14 at 17:08
  • From a company like Google with this huge reputation, the absence of such a simple feature is truly embarrassing. That's why I still don't trust cloud storage. Windows has a simple rule. No two files with the same name should exist in one folder, and it warns about overriding the existing file. Google Drive let's you have a million "my cat this morning" files. Why on earth they decided to permit that? – Saeed Neamati Jul 17 '15 at 11:56
  • There is a good reason for this: never throw away stuff from your customer, better caution on the safe side. – LaPingvino Aug 22 '15 at 9:00
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Short Answer

At this time Google Drive doesn't include a way to automatically identified and/or remove duplicated files.

Alternatives

References

Google Drive Help

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Duplicate File Finder, Cleaner for Drive did it for me. It scans your online folder.

This is a tool that scans selected directories in Google Drive and finds any duplicate files inside them. The app works with all sorts of files and can also be configured to scan sub-folders within a given directory. You can decide for yourself if you want to trash by selecting them. Supports IE10+, Chrome, Firefox... Provides a connection with Google Drive. You can directly scan duplicate files within your drive.

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  • Some more detail on how that site works would be nice. – Vidar S. Ramdal Oct 26 '15 at 16:02

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