README.rst

remdups - remove duplicate files

Author:	Roland Puntaier
Homepage:	https://github.com/rpuntaie/remdups
License:	See LICENSE file

remdups

remdups generates a script to

• remove duplicate files
• copy files from another directory to this one, ignoring duplicates
• move files from another directory to this one, ignoring duplicates

The resulting script should be further inspected before executing it in your shell.

Usage

0. Optional. You can choose one or more source+hashing methods, via e.g.:

   cat > .remdups_c.sha512
   cat > .remdups_e.md5
   

   All of .remdups_{c,b,d,e,n}.{sha512, sha384, sha256, sha224, sha1, md5} contribute to the final hash. If you don't make such a file, the default is:

   .remdups_c.sha256
   

   {'c': 'content', 'b': 'block', 'd': 'date', 'e': 'exif', 'n': 'name'}

1. Create the hash file by either of (can take a long time):

   remdups
   remdups update
   remdups update <fromdir>
   

   The hashes are added to all .remdups_x.y. To rehash all files:

   rm .remdups_*
   

2. Make a script with rm, mv, cp commands. It can be repeated with different options until the script is good.

   $remdups rm -s script.sh $remdups cp -s script.bat #if you used <fromdir> $remdups mv -s script.py #if you used <fromdir>

   If the file ends in .sh, cp is used and the file names are in linux format. This is usable also on Windows with MSYS, MSYS2 and CYGWIN.

   If the file ends in .bat, Windows commands are used.

   If the file ends in .py, python functions are used.

3. Inspect the script and go back to 2., if necessary. Changes to the script can also be done with the editor.

4. execute script

   $./script.sh

Alternatively you can use remdups from your own python script, or interactively from a python prompt.

Install

• Directly from PyPi:

$ pip install remdups

• From github: Clone, change to the directory and do

$ python setup.py install

• If you plan to extend this tool

  • fork on github
  • clone from your fork to you PC
  • do an editable install

  $ pip install -e .

  • test after change and bring coverage to 100%

  $ py.test --cov remdups.py --cov-report term-missing

  • consider sharing changes useful for others (github pull request).

Hint

For more advanced file selection find can be used. The following example ignores directory old and produces a hash for all JPEG files:

$ find . -path "old" -prune -or -not -type d -and -iname "\*.jpg" -exec sha256sum {} \; > .remdups_c.sha256

Command Line

The following is in addition to the help given with:

remdups --help

The sources for the hashes can be:

{'c': 'content', 'b': 'block', 'd': 'date', 'e': 'exif', 'n': 'name'}

Don't include n, because same files with different names cannot be found. c is the best.

Do e.g:

cat > .remdups_b.sha512
cat > .remdups_c.sha256

Fill the hash files from the current directory:

remdups update

Or fill the hash files from another directory:

remdups update <fromdir>

In the latter case the paths in the hash files will have a // or \\ to mark the start for the new relatives paths in a subsequent mv or cp command.

Once the hash files are filled create the script. It depend on the extension used:

remdups <command> -s script.sh <options>
remdups <command> -s script.bat <options>
remdups <command> -s script.py <options>

command can be rm, cp, mv. There is also dupsof and dupsoftail, but they don't take a --script, but print the output.

--keep-in, --keep-out and --comment-out will remove different files of a duplicate group. --safe will do a byte-wise comparison, before creating the script. That takes longer.

cp and mv also take --sort: In this case the tree is not recreated, but the files are sorted to the provided tree structure using the file modification date. See https://docs.python.org/3/library/datetime.html#strftime-strptime-behavior.

API

With your own python script you can load the file for hashing and use the loaded content immediately to create the new file, if not duplicate.

from remdups import *
hasher = Hasher()
allduplicates = []
for filename,duplicates,content in hasher.foreachcontent('.'):
  if duplicates:
    allduplicates.append(f)
  else:
    assert content!=[] #some .remdups_ must be with (c)ontent
    nfilename = 'afilehere'
    with open(nfilename,'wb') as nf:
      for buf in content:
        nf.write(buf)
    shutil.copystat(filename, nfilename)

foreachcontent() uses scandir(), but does not add duplicate files to the .remdup_ files.

for f in hasher.scandir(otherdir,filter=['*.jpg'],exclude=['**/old/*']):
   duplicates = hasher.duplicates(f)
   yield (f,duplicates,kw['content'])
   if duplicates:
      hasher.clear(f)
   else:
      hasher.update_hashfiles()

If you don't want to keep the content, don't provide a [] for content in scandir. scandir() will hash all files not yet in the .remdup_ files and will return the file name.

This code resorts a tree by hashing and creating a copy, if not duplicate.

import os
import remdups
os.chdir('dir/to/resort/to')
with open('.remdups_c.sha256','w'): pass
remdups.resort('../some/dir/here',"%y%m/%d_%H%M%S")