Sponge for Mac

User Reviews

• Rather slow but does a very good job finding duplicates

  bigHoleMarch 17, 2012

  Pros

  Works well at finding duplicate copies on one disc or partition. Once found they are listed in separate fields, and it is simple to view them in separate windows. If a series of dups is found, you can see and trash the lot. Best surprise is that if finds duplicate images even if one has been renamed. This is worth the price in itself.

  Cons

  Occasionally Sponge finds the same file twice. So if you are trashing a duplicate, make certain it really is a second copy. Only checks one disc or partition at a time. Not great if you have several.

  Summary

  I downloaded Sponge specifically to soak up and wring out (please excuse me) the many duplicate photographs I generate over time. I shoot thousands, rename them all before converting the RAW images I intend to use into DNG files and archiving the rest. As such I can end up with several copies of the same set of images and this kind of sloppy file keeping can fill a hard drive quickly. Of course, I can use the Mac's find command, but I don't believe that it works as well as it used to. It can take a long time; and as bad as it is to waste HD space, wasting time is worse. Sponge is not fast, but it is quite willing to work in the background while I'm producing great art in the fore. An occasional check can keep me in touch with the search. I was rather put off at first with its lack of alacrity, but now see this is not a problem. It chugs in the background and I chug up front. Life is good. A great time and space killer consists of dealing with those photos that I missed in my renaming process, They can show up as a folder filled with files named something like "_DSC5978.NEF" and so on. Worse yet is when I check a couple and they look familiar, and I have no idea if they have been filed or not. Ugly...! I had a big folder named "EmptyDs" just filled with these files that I didn't have time to check over and I was afraid to throw away. Well, Sponge went through that folder, matching the dups, leaving the new stuff and giving me back a lot of my hard drive. Bravo, Sponge. On the down side, several times I discovered that Sponge found one file, but listed it in both fields as a dupe. There is danger lurking there. Take care. Sponge does other things, but I know nothing about them. Best wishes MacHolly

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