HOW TO Find visually similar images

SET SEARCH OPTIONS Select Similar Images and choose the folder or folders containing all your images using the Add button. Above the results window you’ll see a series of options – the three drop-down menus at the top affect the speed (and quality) of the scan process. Leave the defaults as they are for now (see the body copy for tips on tweaking these).

SCAN AND TWEAK The initial scan will take some time to complete, but a cache file is generated that will speed up future rescans with different settings if they’re required (you can also tick ‘Fast compare’ if you move the similarity slider right to speed things up, too). If no results are returned, verify you’ve not ticked ‘Reference folder’. Finally, a list of matches should be displayed.

FINE-TUNE YOUR SEARCH SETTINGS The Similarity slider enables you to determine how closely matched each image must be. Leave it set to ‘Very high’ for now. Tick ‘Ignore same size’ only if you want to ignore exact duplicates, and leave ‘Fast compare’ unticked, too. Click Search and wait while Czkawka performs its initial scan of your files to determine potential matches.

REVIEW RESULTS Select each result in turn and you’ll see a preview appear in the right-hand pane. Click the Compare button beneath to view the matched photos side-by-side in a separate window. You can then tick the ones you wish to remove or use the Select button for batch selections (you’ll notice an additional option to select all but the biggest/smallest in addition to the usual choices).