Replace duplicates with symlinks [SOLVED]

Alan Milnes deep64blue at itguru.org.uk
Sat Jul 26 19:06:22 UTC 2008


Alan Milnes wrote:
> I've just invested in a 1Tb external HDD and am consolidating various 
> backups onto it.  What I'd like to do is identify and remove all 
> duplicate files on it but replace them with symlinks to the original.
> 
> I've googled and found fslint and fdupes, the latter looks promising as 
> you can export the findings to a text file - it produces a line like this:-

OK the answer is FSlint which wins the prize for the biggest discrepancy 
between usefulness and documentation!!  Here's how I did it.

1) sudo apt-get fslint

2) Apps -> System Tools -> FSlint

3) Removed my home directory from the search path and added my USB drive.

4) Selected 'duplicates' then 'find'

5) Once it had finished searching clicked on 'merge', *without* 
selecting any of the results.  It's really counter-intuitive, it runs 
the merge process against those files not selected.

That's it.

Am now running it on my 84% full 1Tb drive - not sure how long it will 
take!!

Alan






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