Czkawka: Hidden Files Taking Up Space? This Free App Reclaims GBs Instantly!
Table of Content
What is Czkawka?
Czkawka (pronounced "ch-kafka," meaning "hiccup" in Polish) is a fast, free, and open-source tool written in memory-safe Rust that helps you find and remove duplicate files, empty directories, similar images, and more. Designed for speed and efficiency, it uses advanced algorithms and multithreading to scan your drives quickly, with support for caching to make subsequent scans even faster.
The app is available on Linux, Windows, macOS, and FreeBSD, Czkawka offers a clean, user-friendly interface and accurate results without ads or bloat. Its companion version, Krokiet, features a modern Slint-powered UI for an even smoother experience. Perfect for keeping your system clutter-free across multiple platforms.
Features
- Written in memory-safe Rust - almost 100% unsafe code free
- Amazingly fast - due to using more or less advanced algorithms and multithreading
- Free, Open Source without ads
- Multiplatform - works on Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD and many more
- Cache support - second and further scans should be much faster than the first one
- CLI frontend - for easy automation
- GUI frontend - uses GTK 4 or Slint frameworks
- No spying - Czkawka does not have access to the Internet, nor does it collect any user information or statistics
- Multilingual - support multiple languages like Polish, English or Italian
- Multiple tools to use:
- Duplicates - Finds duplicates based on file name, size or hash
- Empty Folders - Finds empty folders with the help of an advanced algorithm
- Big Files - Finds the provided number of the biggest files in given location
- Empty Files - Looks for empty files across the drive
- Temporary Files - Finds temporary files
- Similar Images - Finds images which are not exactly the same (different resolution, watermarks)
- Similar Videos - Looks for visually similar videos
- Same Music - Searches for similar music by tags or by reading content and comparing it
- Invalid Symbolic Links - Shows symbolic links which point to non-existent files/directories
- Broken Files - Finds files that are invalid or corrupted
- Bad Extensions - Lists files whose content not match with their extension
Other apps
There are many similar applications to Czkawka on the Internet, which do some things better and some things worse:
GUI
- DupeGuru - Many options to customize; great photo compare tool
- FSlint - A little outdated, but still have some tools not available in Czkawka
- AntiDupl.NET - Shows a lot of metadata of compared images
- Video Duplicate Finder - Finds similar videos(surprising, isn't it), supports video thumbnails
CLI
Due to limited time, the biggest emphasis is on the GUI version so if you are looking for really good and feature-packed console apps, then take a look at these:
- Fclones - One of the fastest tools to find duplicates; it is written also in Rust
- Rmlint - Nice console interface and also is feature packed
- RdFind - Fast, but written in C++ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
License
The entire code in this repository is licensed under the MIT license.
