czkawka

com github qarmin czkawka

Czkawka (tch•kav•ka (IPA: [ˈʧ̑kafka]), “hiccup” in Polish) is a simple, fast and free app to remove unnecessary files from your computer.

Krokiet ((IPA: [ˈkrɔcɛt]), “croquet” in Polish) same as above, but uses Slint frontend.

Features

Czkawka

Usage, installation, compilation, requirements, license

Each tool uses different technologies, so you can find instructions for each of them in the appropriate file:

Benchmarks

Previous benchmark was done mostly with two python project - dupeguru and fslint.
Both were written in python so it was mostly obvious that Czkawka will be faster due using more low-level functions and faster language.

I tried to use rmlint gui but it not even started on my computer, so instead I used Detwinner, fclones-gui and dupeguru.

I tested it on a 1024 GB SSD(Sata 3) and an i7-4770 CPU(4/8HT), disk contains 1742102 files which took 850 GB Minimum file size 64KB, with search in hidden folders without any excluded folders/files.

Czkawka 7.0.0 Detwinner 0.4.2 Dupeguru 4.3.1 Fclones-gui 0.2.0

I prepared a disk and performed a test without any folder exceptions and with disabled ignoring of hard links. The disk contained 363 215 files, took 221,8 GB and had 62093 duplicate files in 31790 groups which occupied 4,1 GB.

I set the minimal file size to check to 1KB on all programs.

App Executing Time
FSlint 2.4.7 (First Run) 86s
FSlint 2.4.7 (Second Run) 43s
Czkawka 3.0.0 (First Run) 8s
Czkawka 3.0.0 (Second Run) 7s
DupeGuru 4.1.1 (First Run) 22s
DupeGuru 4.1.1 (Second Run) 21s

I used Mprof for checking memory usage of FSlint and DupeGuru, and Heaptrack for Czkawka.

App Idle Ram Max Operational Ram Usage Stabilized after search
FSlint 2.4.7 62 MB 164 MB 158 MB
Dupeguru 4.1.1 90 MB 170 MB 166 MB
Czkawka 3.0.0 12 MB 122 MB 60 MB

In Dupeguru, I enabled checking images with different dimensions to match Czkawka behavior. Both apps use a caching mechanism, so the second scan is really fast.

Similar images which check 10949 files that occupied 6.6 GB

App Scan time
Czkawka 3.0.0 (First Run) 276s
Czkawka 3.0.0 (Second Run) 1s
DupeGuru 4.1.1 (First Run) 539s
DupeGuru 4.1.1 (Second Run) 1s

Similar images which check 349 image files that occupied 1.7 GB

App Scan time
Czkawka 3.0.0 (First Run) 54s
Czkawka 3.0.0 (Second Run) 1s
DupeGuru 4.1.1 (First Run) 55s
DupeGuru 4.1.1 (Second Run) 1s

Of course there are multiple tools that offer even better performance, but usually are only specialized in one simple area.

Comparison to other tools

Bleachbit is a master at finding and removing temporary files, while Czkawka only finds the most basic ones. So these two apps shouldn’t be compared directly or be considered as an alternative to one another.

In this comparison remember, that even if app have same features they may work different(e.g. one app may have more options to choose than other).

  Czkawka Krokiet FSlint DupeGuru Bleachbit
Language Rust Rust Python Python/Obj-C Python
Framework base language C Rust C C/C++/Obj-C/Swift C
Framework GTK 4 Slint PyGTK2 Qt 5 (PyQt)/Cocoa PyGTK3
OS Lin,Mac,Win Lin,Mac,Win Lin Lin,Mac,Win Lin,Mac,Win
Duplicate finder  
Empty files    
Empty folders    
Temporary files  
Big files      
Similar images    
Similar videos      
Music duplicates(tags)    
Invalid symlinks    
Broken files      
Names conflict    
Invalid names/extensions    
Installed packages        
Bad ID        
Non stripped binaries        
Redundant whitespace        
Overwriting files      
Multiple languages  
Cache support    
In active development Yes Yes No Yes Yes

Other apps

There are many similar applications to Czkawka on the Internet, which do some things better and some things worse:

GUI

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:

Contributions

Contributions to this repository are welcome.

You can help by creating:

You can also help by doing other things:

Thanks

Big thanks to Pádraig Brady, creator of fantastic FSlint, because without his work I wouldn’t create this tool.

Thanks also to all the people who create patches for this program, make it available on other systems, create videos, articles about it etc.

Also, I really appreciate work of people that create crates on which Czkawka is based and for that I try to report bugs to make it even better.

Donations

If you are using the app, I would appreciate a donation for its further development, which can be done here.