MacPaw is at it again and has released a brand new app to the world: Gemini, The Duplicate Finder. The folks over at MacPaw are no strangers to the Mac ecosystem, and have released some greats apps in the past, most notably CleanMyMac.
Although not a revolutionary concept, Gemini takes a beautiful new approach to finding duplicate documents on your Mac, with a stunning interface and some fancy animations. Head on past the break to read more.
Scanning
The simple opening screen
When you fire up Gemini you will already get a decent sense of the level of detail you can expect in this application. The only option you have is to upload a file for it to scan, and it gives you the option to click the + button to open Finder and chose your files, or simply drag and drop them onto the window.
Show Scan results option
After some pretty animation to keep you occupied while your files are being scanned, you are able to show the results and move onto the core functionality of this app: removing duplicates.
Selecting Files
Now is when the real fun starts. Once you’ve chosen to progress to show results you are presented with an entirely new screen displaying all your information regarding your scanned files. On the left is the upper hierarchy, showing ‘All Files’ and then split into the separate sub-categories such as Pictures, Music and Other. All the files from the categories are showed in the middle vertical bar. Here it shows you how many copies of each specific file there are, and giving you plenty of options as to how you want to order the files.
File preview window
What is incredibly useful is the right half of the app, which shows a preview of the selected file. This makes a world of difference; giving you an idea of what files you are working with, otherwise if the file wasn’t named correctly you would have little idea what you’re deleting. Below the preview is where the source of the file is saved, allowing you to decide which version you want to delete (hovering over the file icons, such as in the bottom of the two images, will reveal more information).
Now that you’ve got an idea of what kind of files you have duplicates of, its time to start trimming the fat. There is an Auto Select feature that will chose the files that it doesn’t think you need, and it will only apply this to the category you are in/ However out of over 30 pictures, it decided to only auto select 3 of them. So manual input is certainly needed, which is a good thing I suppose because you wouldn’t want the program selecting too many items and deleting stuff you may want to keep.
Some files can not be removed
Removing
List of all files selected for removal
Having selected all the duplicate files you want to remove, with a handy iTunes-like display up top showing the number and size of selected files, you click the Remove Selected button. You are then presented with a pretty ‘receipt’ with all the files you’re planning on deleting. You can review your selections and easily remove any if they accidentally got put in there.
Shredding your duplicates
After clicking remove you’re finished, and your files will elegantly slide into the shredder and out of your Mac – or rather into the Trash awaiting your emptying.
Conclusion
You can see from the numerous screenshots that this app is beautifully designed, which is always a good measure of the effort put into the app. Fortunately, Gemini lives up to the expectations set by the design. Sure there are other apps out there that offer similar services, yet Gemini remains a simple, easy and effective application that’s hard to beat.
Gemini removes all unnecessary elements by finding duplicate files on your hard drive. It may have some downsides, such as the inability to remove certain files in Apple applications, yet I would go as far to say that Gemini is the AppZapper of duplicate finders. You’re paying for the wonderful experience and convenience of having such a great app – and I believe at $4.99 its reasonably priced.