When faced with the task of identifying duplicate content among a lot of files, I discovered a convenient Linux command instead of having to write custom code.

Suppose all the files in your directory have a .txt extension in an example directory.

To find duplicate content among .txt files in the example directory on a Linux system, you can use the fdupes command below:

fdupes -r -n example/

Explanation of the options used:

  • -r: Recursively search for duplicate files in subdirectories.
  • -n: Display only the files that have duplicates.
  • example/: Target directory.

This command will list the duplicate files found in the specified directory and its subdirectories, based on their content. Make sure you review the output carefully before taking any action, as it will show you the files that are considered duplicates based on content comparison.

Please note that fdupes considers duplicate content based on the file’s content hash, not necessarily the file name. If you’re specifically interested in finding files with the same names but different content, you might need a more advanced script or tool.