Found the Duplicates Across 15 Drives — Didn't Delete a Single One

A decade of backups, phone transfers, and "just in case" copies means the same photo often exists two or three times across different drives, sometimes under a completely different filename. Finding those duplicates by eye across 15 drives isn't realistic. Deleting them automatically, without being certain, is worse. MediaVault does the finding without ever doing the deleting.

Three levels of certainty

MediaVault starts with an instant, database-only comparison — file size, capture time, and camera model — which catches renamed copies that simple filename matching would completely miss. From there, a fast partial-hash pass narrows things further, and an opt-in full cryptographic hash gives you complete certainty when you want it, at the cost of actually reading every byte.

Quarantined, not deleted

Anything flagged moves to a quarantine folder on the drive — it's still there, just set aside — and only you empty it, on your own schedule, after you've had a chance to review what got flagged. Every quarantine action and scan is logged, so what happened and when is never a mystery later.

For an archive you can't afford to be wrong about, "found with certainty, removed only when you say so" is the only acceptable version of duplicate cleanup.