Similarity 2.5.1

Overview

Those who have been using their computers for a long time without cleaning them regularly probably have many duplicate files stored. Similarity is a software designed to trace duplicate audio and image files, as well as similar files. It uses the acoustic fingerprint technology to specify the similarity percentage between audio files, and lets the user decide what to keep and what to throw away.

Installation

Installation is straightforward and has no difficult settings whatsoever. It consists of only a few easy steps, most of which are only a matter of clicking Next. The product is clean from viruses, spyware and other types of malware and it also doesn’t contain any additional 3^rd party software either.

Similarity can be run under Windows XP, 2003, Vista, 7 and 8 (there are different versions for 32 and 64-bit systems). Mac users can also get the Mac version, whilst Linux users have to wait a bit before the program is released for that OS.

Interface

The organized features make it a pleasure working with this program, actually. Similarity is basically split into 4 tabs: Folders, Results: Audio, Results: Images and Analysis. The first tab is where you add the directories to be scanned for duplicate files. After doing so you can start the analysis by clicking on the Play button from the toolbar, and watch the second and third tab fill with music and image files respectively as they’re found. The last tab is used when you select the “Analyze/Analyze All” function from the Action menu. It will analyze all audio files and display their properties along with a Rating feature that will make it easier for you to choose which file to keep in every group of duplicates.

Pros

Not many duplicate file removal software have implemented the main feature of this program, which is the search for similar files and not only identical ones. This software makes a very good use out of it by producing a similarity percentage between found files, so that you can easier decide whether to delete them or keep them. This applies to audio files (by analyzing their acoustic fingerprint) and images. But there’s more to it; the “Analyze” function will scan all found audio duplicates and display many of their properties (sample rate, bit rate, size, channels, duration, clipping, silence, etc.), which it will then take into account in order to create a rating (%) for each file that represents its quality. This way you can decide easier which file to keep from a group of duplicates. The auto-mark feature can make an automatic selection for all files using the rating.

The audio comparison methods are based on the weight of various factors (tags, content, duration, etc.) which you can adjust from the settings menu to suit your needs.

Cons

No cons here.

Alternatives

Duplicate Music Files Finder (free) is an alternative to Similarity, however it lacks the ability to scan for similar files. MP3 Duplicate Finder (paid) on the other hand can find similar files too.

Conclusion

Awesome product, and it’s recommended to everyone who wants a deep clean in their music and image collections.