Step 6

Step 6: Removing files

Choosing the right method

Now that you have checked the files you want to delete, there are four possible ways of removing them. You can move them to a backup folder, move/delete them to Windows' Recycle Bin, delete them directly or replace them by shortcuts pointing to the remaining files.
The recommended way is using the Recycle Bin because it offers easy methods to restore them to their original location if needed.
If you are very unsure about the files you selected, better move them to a backup folder - you can restore them almost as easy as from Windows' Recycle Bin, but you cannot accidently delete them by routinely clearing it. In either case you should keep the files a while to make sure everything is running fine and you did not delete a file that is still needed by Windows or some software.
Directly deleting files is not recommended. You should use this only if you are perfectly sure neither you nor any installed software will need the file again.
Replacing the files by shortcut is not reversible, but it is very useful to clean up a file collection that contains intended duplicates - maybe the same picture is fitting in two categories and you want to be able to find it in both. Note that only you can follow these shortcuts, Windows or other software will not be able to find a missing file this way.
For detailed information on all of the four methods, please read File actions and its subchapters.

Example: Recycling the files

To move all checked files to the Recycle Bin, simply click the move to recycle bin button to the left of the result list.

After confirming the warning message, the files are moved to the Recycle Bin. When all checked files have been moved, there will probably be some lonely files remaining in the result list, i.e. files of which all other copies have been removed. DoubleKiller asks you if you want to have them removed from the result list to tidy it up - in most cases you will want to answer Yes because these lonely files are often disturbing when you want to go on with checking and removing files.

See also
File actions