Clone Tools is an ideal package for safely removing duplicate files from your hard drive.

As with many similar utilities, you start by choosing the drives you'd like to scan. And with one click the program will crawl all over your folders, looking for duplicate files. (That is, files which are byte-for-byte identical, rather than just having similar names.)

What's different here, though, is when you've finished Clone Tools can present your duplicate files by showing you the folders that contain them. So instead of browsing some overwhelming list with thousands of names, you're able to look at your duplicate files in context. This takes longer, but also helps you understand why the duplicates are there, and makes it much less likely that you'll accidentally wipe something important.

Clone Tools includes some unusual duplicate management options. If you find two folders with similar contents, for instance, a handy Merge option will copy the files from one, to the other, then delete the original folder, and all in a couple of clicks.

And the program can also highlight other potential hard drive clutter, including zero size files and empty folders. Although you have to be careful before deleting these, as occasionally they just might be required by one or more of your applications.