DupeKill is a simple and fast duplicate file finder for Windows.

The program manages to make NirSoft apps look bloated, thanks to a tiny 62.3KB download which unpacks to a single executable.

A very basic interface offers barely any search settings. There are no options to compare using file names or dates, no file specs to select, no file size ranges to specify, or anything else. All you can do is specify a starting folder and opt to search subfolders.

What you do get is an interesting scanning technique. While most similar programs grind through every byte of every possible duplicate file until they spot a change, DupeKill takes small samples from the beginning, middle and end of a file, and compares their hashes first.

This approach generates some extra work, but may also help the program spot non-duplicates more quickly. We found DupeKill scanned our test system around 25% faster than Auslogics Duplicate File Finder, and if your files are very large, the improvements could  be considerably more.

The final report lists groups of duplicate files and intelligently selects the one you’re most likely to keep

Once the scan is complete, DupeKill examines the file names of every group of duplicates to intelligently decide which you’re most likely to keep.

The program understands that files with “copy of” or “.1.” in the name are probably duplicates, for instance, and that you’ll probably prefer more lengthy descriptive names (“Lake Picture.jpg”) to a shortened form (“lkepic.jpg”).

The Settings dialog has one or two more small surprises, including the ability to add a scanning option to Explorer’s folder right-click menu, and to change the default Remove action from “Delete” to “Create Symbolic Link”.

Overall, DupeKill’s lack of search options is an issue, but its speedy scanning algorithm and intelligent file selections make it worth a few minutes of your time. Go take a look.

DupeKill is available for Windows 7 and later.