Find duplicate files using OpenOffice.Calc

I had a problem of having a set of directories with some files duplicated in some of the directories. The search for a software to remove duplicate files did not reveal any free utilities to accomplish this task. So I decided to use OpenOffice.Calc to do the job.

  • First I got the list of all the files:
    dir /b/s >list.csv
    
  • Then, I opened list.csv in OpenOffice.Calc and used this formula to extract only the file name:
    =RIGHT(A1;LEN(A1)-SEARCH("\\[^\\]*$";A1;1))
    
  • After that, I sorted the sheet by the file names and added a formula that detected duplicate file names:
    =IF(B2=B1;"DUP";"")
    
  • Search for the string DUP (in values) quickly showed me where the duplicates are.

I know it was not as easy as running a specific program, but it was easier for me to do that than to find a free software.

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