Just how many copies of the same file exist on your hard drive? While some people take great risks with their data, others end up creating backup after backup, or copying files here, there and everywhere, until multiple copies are left cluttering up their hard drive.

Duplicate file finders used to simply point out files with identical file names – it was then up to you to decide if the files really were the same and so one or more copies could be safely disposed of. But that runs its own risks, which is why today’s duplicate file-finding tools need to be really savvy when handling people's data.

Wise Duplicate Finder is one such tool that bends over backwards to be careful while giving you the opportunity to locate redundant files to clear up much-needed file space. Start by selecting your drives or folders and whether Duplicate Finder should scan all files or simply match those exactly (slow), partial match (fast) or similar. Depending on your choice, the scanning can take seconds or minutes, especially if you're scanning through more than one hard drive.

If you're seeking further control, click "Advanced" and you can also choose the filetypes you want to search for or those you want to eliminate from your search. You can also choose specific keywords to add to your search.

It then performs a scan of your selected drives for the files you wish to root out. You can sort the results by filename, last modified date, and finally size. Sadly there's no MD5 checksum scanning – the equivalent of a file’s unique fingerprint – which would ensure the risk of finding non-duplicate files incredibly slim.

Once the scan completes, you’ll be presented with a list of files. Tick those you wish to remove and delete them permanently. We'd double-check that you really want to delete the selected files as there's no way of either archiving files or recovering accidentally deleted files. There is a general backup/restore function, however.