How to Clean Your Duplicate Video and Audio Files with Nero DuplicateManager

Duplicate videos and audio files can quickly pile up across your computer, external drives, or media folders — taking up precious storage space and making your libraries cluttered. If you’ve noticed duplicate movies, songs, or recordings, it’s time to tidy up your collection.

With Nero DuplicateManager, you can easily detect and remove duplicate media files in just a few clicks — safely and efficiently.

Follow these simple steps to get your library organized and your storage back!


🔄 Step 1: Update to the Latest Version

Before you start, make sure you’re using the latest Nero DuplicateManager 365 or 2026.
Updating ensures you have the newest features, faster scanning, and the most accurate detection for video and audio duplicates.

How to check for updates:

  1. Open Nero Start.
  2. Go to Updates.
  3. Install the latest version of Nero DuplicateManager if available.

Keeping your software up to date guarantees the best cleanup experience.


🎵 Step 2: Check the Detection Options for Audio and Video

 

Nero DuplicateManager doesn’t just compare file names — it analyzes file content, metadata, and format characteristics to find real duplicates, even when the names differ.

To make sure your media files are included in the scan:

  1. Launch Nero DuplicateManager.
  2. Check the Detection Options.
  3. Enable the checkboxes for Audio and Video.

This ensures that both music and video files are thoroughly analyzed and detected.


📁 Step 3: Select the Folders You Want to Clean

Next, choose where Nero DuplicateManager should look for duplicates.

To select folders:

  1. Select the folders that contain your music and videos — for example, Music, Videos, Movies, or External Drive folders.
  2. Click the Add button to add the folders to the right column.
  3. Add multiple folders if needed for a full-library scan.

When you’re ready, click the Next button to start scan and let Nero DuplicateManager find all your duplicate media files automatically.


🗑️ Step 4: Review and Delete Duplicate Files

After scanning, you’ll see a clear overview of all detected duplicates.

You can:

  • Preview videos and listen to audio directly within the app.
  • Let the software auto-mark duplicates for safe deletion (keeping one original).
  • Or manually select which copies to delete or keep.

Once reviewed, click Remove button to remove duplicates and instantly reclaim valuable disk space.


⚡ Why Choose Nero DuplicateManager?

  • 🔍 Smart Detection: Finds real duplicates based on content, not just names.
  • 🎬 Supports All Major Media Formats: MP4, AVI, MOV, MP3, FLAC, WAV, and more.
  • 🧠 Safe Cleanup: Automatically keeps at least one original copy.
  • 🚀 Fast and Reliable: Optimized for large media collections and quick results.

Whether you’re managing your personal music collection or cleaning up old project folders, Nero DuplicateManager gives you complete control — with safety, speed, and precision.

How to fix RAW preview issue in Nero DuplicateManager Photo?

You may experience an empty preview for some RAW files. They are probably damaged or not supported by your system. You can double confirm this with the system Photos app.error
If it is because the system problem, installing RAW Image Extension may resolve your problem. Windows 10 has built-in support for RAW image from its 2019 update. You just need to install an extension from the Store.

Windows 10: Install the RAW Images Extension
To install and use the RAW Image Extension, you must be using the Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version 1903 or later). If you’re unable to install the extension, you will have to install the update from the Settings app or download it manually from Microsoft’s website.

The codec for this free extension is brought to you by the people at libraw.org and doesn’t support every format of RAW images yet. To see if yours are compatible with this extension, check out the project’s website for an up-to-date list of supported cameras. The RAW Image Extension enables viewing images in Nero DuplicateManager Photo and the Photos app as well as thumbnails and previews. You also can open a RAW file’s properties window to see the metadata.

Head to the Microsoft Store and search for “Raw Images Extension,” or go directly to the Raw Image Extension page. Click “Get” to install it.
get

Now click “Install” to install the extension.
Install

After the extension downloads and installs, close the Store and navigate to the folder with your RAW images. Thumbnails instantly generate inside of File Explorer.
thumbnail
Double-click on the image, click “Photos,” then click “OK.” Your RAW image will now open directly in the Photos app now.

Start Nero DuplicateManger Photo
Now please start Nero DuplicateManager Photo and run detection for the RAW files again. Nero DuplicateManager Photo also will list thumbnail and preview correctly.
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Which kinds of duplicate images can I find and remove with ‘Nero DuplicateManager Photo’?

From Nero Platinum 2019 ‘Nero DuplicateManager Photo’ comes with the new mode ‘find similar images’. Now it will find files with similar images fast and reliable. For your convenience, similar images will be automatically categorized into categories and you can select to keep or remove images based on your personal preferences.

How does this work and what do the categories tell me?

‘Nero DuplicateManager’ will analyze all the photo content that you have selected for analysis in the home page via the add function. When you have added one or several folders (even a complete drive)  for duplicate detection click on ‘next’.

Now ‘Nero DuplicateManager’ will detect your exact duplicate images first and provides recommendations what is save to delete. The pre-selected red color at the bottom of the thumbnails indicates this.

In a second step, it will identify images that have a common source but have gone through different variations on your system over time. In this ‘Similar Images’ mode Nero DuplicateManager cannot and will not give recommendations what is save to delete, as the decision must be done by yourself.

The category tabs ‘Places’, ‘Series’, ‘Motives’, ‘Resized’, ‘Format’, and ‘Others’ already give a clue as to what the detected similar images relate to. When the detection for similar images is finished, ‘Nero DuplicateManager’ will list the categories in the order of the number of detected images per category displayed on the respective category tab. So, if most of your images are related to series shots, you will find the category ‘Series’ on the left hand side tab to start with.Nero Duplicate Manager_Similar Images_300 dpi

Similar images – ‘Places’

Imagine you went on vacation and you have done many shots in different locations with the geotagging function switched on in your smartphone. E.g. if you went to a museum you may have done shots within a range of maybe 0.5 kilometers over some hours. For sure, there are shots with very similar content and shots sizes, especially when your wife and kids did more or less the same shots on their smartphones in the same location. Now, when you have imported all of the assets to your PC system, you will find many images that look very similar, although they are no exact duplicates.

‘Nero DuplicateManager’ makes it easy for you only keeping your favorites. The deleting can simply be assigned by hovering over the image and selecting the red basket icon, after which the indicator at the bottom of the thumbnail turns to red color. Simply undo this via the green thumb icon, after which the bottom of the thumbnail turns to green color, indicating that you want to keep this image.

Similar Images – ‘Series’

Today, almost all smartphones or camera devices have an option to do HDR series shots, where images with lower, higher, and medium aperture per shot merge into one HDR image, which has more contrast and detail. If you did not deselect the option to keep the source files together with the HDR shot, you will end up with a number of almost identical images that just have different aperture values.

Another case related to a fast sequence of series shots is doing bracketing shots. Just press the record button longer, and your device will create a series of almost identical shots over the time you press the button.

For both cases, Nero DuplicateManager will collect these images under the category ‘Series’.

Just select your favorites (green) and free yourself by simply deleting (red) the rest.

Similar images – ‘Motive’

You might have done shots of your kids or friends in the same circumstances or location over a given time that have very similar shot sizes, and motives but do not qualify for series shots or places (no GPS data). Such images will be sorted into the ‘Motive’ category. As with the other cases, in here, you also have options for modifying similarity and time settings.

Similar Images – Resized

I guess you also have made the experience to downscale large images occasionally, just by reducing the resolution, e.g. if you want to put them into a ‘PowerPoint’ slide deck, or share them via mail attachment / via social media. ‘Nero DuplicateManager’ detects these images and provides concrete information on the image preferences e.g. resolutions via the ‘Details’ button. Now it is easy just keeping what you like to keep when cleaning up your image archive. As a rule of thumb, we recommend always keeping the image with the highest resolution. This will be your original shot with the best quality, in most cases.

Similar Images – ‘Formats’

As a matter of fact, images come in different formats. Imagine you have exported the same image from a photo editing project once as a PNG to make use of the alpha transparency in your video editing project, or just exported it as a JPEG for sharing. There are different reasons why you export and convert images to different formats with the same content. ‘Nero DuplicateManager’ detects different image formats with the same content in the category ‘Formats’.  Just decide what you want to keep (green) or delete (red).

Similar Images – Other

Any detected image that does not fall into one of the above categories lists under ‘Other’.

Similar Images – Options

In most of the above cases, you can define the number of detected images more precisely by adding a special time (day, hour) or change the similarity slider from low to high.

Exact and Similar Images – Overview

When you have selected the images, you want to keep or delete, click next and the images will be put to the recycle bin. You can restore these from within the application – so, no worries!

Both tabs ‘Duplicate Images’ and ‘Similar Images’ will give an overview of what was deleted or kept.

The similar images tab also has a detailed statistics view visualizing the categories. This is very helpful for checking what you deleted and kept, and where you might want to come back to at a later point.NDM Smilar Statistics

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Can I find and remove similar images with Nero DuplicateManager?

Got lost with all the duplicated and similar photos in your PC photo archive due to photo editing and HDR image import from your smartphone?

From Nero Platinum 2019 ‚Nero DuplicateManager Photo‘ comes with the new mode ‘Find similar images’. Now it will find folders and files with similar images fast and reliable. For your convenience, similar images will be automatically categorized into places, series, motives, resized, format, and others and you can remove images based on your personal preferences.

Tip!

For further information on categories in Nero DuplicateManager Photo, please check Nero KnowHow 00133

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