Duplication of files is most of the times, caused by human errors. One way or the other, sooner or later, almost all of us will end up creating duplicate files on your computers. The story of similar files is a little different one. These files aren’t identical copies, which right away does away with the computer system detecting them as such.
For similar images, a sophisticated mechanism is required to identify and report them to the user. As a general-purpose duplicate file removal utility isn’t capable enough for this purpose, a purpose-built software program is needed to remove visually similar images from OneDrive with ease.
PictureEcho for Windows is a verified software
Compatible with Windows 10
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See PictureEcho blog for more details
Solution
OneDrive doesn’t support identifying similar photos and so the user is left to look for a software solution that does the trick. PictureEcho is a great example that incorporates a smart blend of functionality to detect duplicate as well as similar photos. Simply download and install OneDrive, sync it to your computer, and let the fun begin.
- Launch the OneDrive application from the start menu.
- Now download and install PictureEcho. The whole process should take a maximum of 2 to 3 minutes.
- Launch PictureEcho by double-clicking the desktop shortcut.
- Click on Add Path to add your local OneDrive folder.
Adding the OneDrive folder - Now navigate through the file system to locate the OneDrive folder, and select it so that it gets added up to be scanned (as shown in the screenshot below).
- Now we move towards the criteria. Select the Exact Match radio box if you’re scanning for duplicate photos and Similar Match for similar photos. In the latter case, we also recommend clicking Similarity Setting and selecting the Level 4 (to get the most results in the scan) option.
- Also, click the checkbox for Show preview, which is all self-explanatory. Finally, click Start Search to initiate the scan for similar photos.
Launching the scan - Once the scan is over, you will notice the results fill up the user interface very quickly. The footer of PictureEcho shows up the number of groups detected for similar/ duplicate files as well as the storage space lost to them.
- Locate the Select Duplicates button and click it to choose an option of your liking.
Choose the group of duplicates you want to retain - The final step for similar photo cleanup involves clicking the Select Action button, and selecting to either permanently purge the photos that have been detected or move them all to a folder you have the luxury to specify.
The last step - As soon as PictureEcho makes any changes to the OneDrive local folder, it begins to sync them to the cloud. Within moments, you will notice these changes reflected in the cloud as well.
