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Ignore Exif and Other Metadata

Posted: 19 Jan 2011, 09:56
by Synetech
Hi,

I love that AllDup is able to ignore the ID3 tags of MP3 files; that sets it above almost all other duplicate-file-finders :D, especially since it actually works (mostly, I've seen it miss some, particularly with damaged/incomplete tags)—I haven't tested it with other audio tags (ID2, APE, etc.)

However there are other metadata tags that can easily be changed and cause two otherwise identical files to appear to be different, especially since newer OSes like Windows 7 make it so easy to modify the tags. Here are a couple of common ones:
  • Exif data for picture files like JPG
  • Metadata for Microsoft Office (specifically Word) files
(This page has some good info on metadata.)

It would be great if AllDup could have an option to ignore them to weed out other duplicate multimedia files.


Thanks a lot.

Re: Ignore Exif and Other Metadata

Posted: 19 Jan 2011, 19:31
by Administrator
Please use the search criteria option "Ignore Exif metadata of JPEG files" to ignore exif metadata from jpeg/jpg files.

Posted: 20 Jan 2011, 01:23
by Synetech
I did, I searched for exif and found nothing (well, now it does find one thread; this one).

Posted: 20 Jan 2011, 10:52
by Administrator
Please open AllDup. Click on the button "search criteria" at the 2. toolbar row. Now check the option "Ignore Exif metadata of JPEG files" at the "File Content" frame.

Posted: 21 Jan 2011, 06:17
by Synetech
Administrator wrote:Please open AllDup. Click on the button "search criteria" at the 2. toolbar row. Now check the option "Ignore Exif metadata of JPEG files" at the "File Content" frame.
Oh, search options in the program, I thought you meant in the forum. :oops:

Actually, I was still using 2.1.10 which didn't have that (I didn't notice that it changed so much while my computer was dead). I've updated to 3.2.22 and it has the option to ignore Exif data. Good job Michael! :lol:

There's still metadata in Microsoft Office files though (for example, I have found some copies of my resumé that are identical except for the metadata that has different dates, or an Excel sheet with the same issue).

Posted: 21 Jan 2011, 11:09
by Administrator
I have added your request about the MS office metadata files to our ToDo-List.