Flagging rules
Duplicarius can flag duplicate files based on rules. These rules can be customized under Duplicates ➝ Flagging Rules.
Flagging is done in two steps:
Priorities
First, files in a duplicates group are ordered by priority. The default rules order files by:
- common prefix: if the names start the same – e.g. differ only by an appended ‘copy’ or number – the shorter name is preferred
- file name, sorted in ascending order
- less nesting depth in the folder hierarchy
- shorter total path length (folder and file names)
Exclusions
The second step is to flag all files in a group that are not excluded by the second set of rules. A file is excluded if at least one of the conditions defined in the rule set applies.
If the exclusion rules within a duplicates group do not exclude any files, all files except the one with the highest priority are flagged.
Prioritization and exclusion rules can interact in complex ways – always make sure the results are as expected.
Path and Name
The flagging rules for path and name are applied to the file system path and the name of a file, respectively.
For path this is the full path of a file, starting with the / for the root directory and excluding the last /, name, and extension. Paths of files on volumes other than the boot volume start with /Volumes/.
Name is everything after the last / including the extension.
Tip: Click in a name or path text field to focus it. Then drag a file or folder from the Finder into the text field to get it filled in.
Examples
For a file Dogcow.moof on the desktop of the user Clarus is
Path = /Users/Clarus/Desktop
name = Dogcow.moof
The same file on the top level of the external drive Archive would have
Path = /Volumes/Archive