Troubleshooting Czkawka: Common Issues and Fixes

Czkawka vs other duplicate finders — Features, speed, and safety

Summary: Czkawka is a modern, Rust-based, cross‑platform duplicate/cleanup tool (GUI + CLI) that emphasizes speed, low memory use, and many file‑cleanup features. Compared to older or specialized tools (fdupes/jdupes, rmlint, dupeGuru, fclones, BleachBit, Video Duplicate Finder), it strikes a balance between usability and performance while providing several safety options.

Features

• Czkawka
  • Duplicate files (content/hash), similar images, similar videos, music duplicates (tags/content), empty files/folders, big files, broken symlinks, invalid names, temporary files, EXIF-aware image handling, caching, GUI + CLI, portable builds.
• fdupes / jdupes
  • CLI-focused, recursive content comparison, MD5/byte checks, fewer high‑level helpers (no similar-image/video detection).
• rmlint / fclones
  • CLI, very fast and feature‑rich for bulk/automated workflows, advanced options for scripts and reports.
• dupeGuru
  • Cross‑platform GUI, strong fuzzy/filename and image similarity matching, music tag aware.
• Video Duplicate Finder / AntiDupl.NET
  • Specialized: video/image perceptual hashing and richer media‑specific comparisons.
• BleachBit / system cleaners
  • Focus on temporary/cache cleaning, not general duplicate detection.

Speed and performance

• Czkawka
  • High parallelism (multi‑threaded Rust core) and low RAM footprint in practice; good for millions of files on NVMe. Uses prehashing + full hashing and image/video optimizations (resizing, caches) to speed scans.
• fclones, rmlint, jdupes
  • Often faster for raw duplicate‑hashing workloads (some are optimized in C/Rust for speed); ideal for headless/batch jobs.
• fdupes
  • Functional but slower; older implementation.
• dupeGuru
  • Slower than Rust/C optimized tools for very large datasets but effective for fuzzy matching.
• Media‑specialized tools
  • Can be slower due to heavy perceptual hashing or thumbnailing; better at catching visually similar media.

Safety and false positives

• Czkawka
  • Offers conservative defaults, prehash + full hash verification, options to preview and move to trash rather than delete, cache and configurable behavior; can still return false positives in “similar” modes—user review recommended.
• CLI tools (rmlint/jdupes/fdupes)
  • Provide options for byte‑by‑byte verification; aggressive delete options exist—use with scripts/backups.
• dupeGuru / media tools
  • Perceptual/fuzzy matching may flag non‑identical items as duplicates; require manual confirmation.
• General advice
  • Always preview matches, use move-to‑trash or create backups before mass deletion, prefer full hash/byte verification for critical data.

When to pick which

• Pick Czkawka for a fast, user‑friendly all‑rounder that handles duplicates, similar media, and other cleanup tasks with GUI + CLI.
• Pick rmlint/fclones/jdupes for maximal raw speed and scriptable, headless batch processing.
• Pick dupeGuru or media‑specialized tools when fuzzy or perceptual image/video matching is required.
• Use conservative deletion workflows (preview, trash, backups) regardless of tool.

If you want, I can produce a short table comparing specific attributes (OS, GUI/CLI, media similarity, speed orientation, safety defaults).