Md5explorer

A command-line file management toolkit: duplicate detection, directory comparison, MD5 inventories, empty-directory cleanup, and a SQLite index for large collections.

Installation

pip install md5explorer

Or, from a local checkout:

pip install -e .

Quickstart

# Detect duplicates (read-only)
md5explorer scan duplicates ./photos

# Simulate deletion, keeping the newest file of each group
md5explorer scan duplicates ./photos --delete --dry-run --keep newest

# Compare two directories
md5explorer scan compare ./dir1 ./dir2

# Generate an MD5 inventory
md5explorer scan inventory ./photos -o inventory.txt

# Index a large tree into SQLite (multiprocess)
md5explorer db index ./photos

# Compare a new folder against the index
md5explorer db compare ./incoming --delete --dry-run

Run md5explorer --help, md5explorer scan --help, or md5explorer db --help for the full option list.

Commands

Group	Subcommand	Purpose
scan	duplicates	Detect and optionally delete duplicate files
scan	compare	Compare two directories file by file
scan	inventory	Write an MD5/name/date/path inventory to a text file
scan	diff-lists	Diff two inventory files by MD5
scan	empty-dirs	Detect and optionally delete empty directories
db	index	Index a directory into the SQLite database
db	list	List entries from the database
db	check	Check if a file is present in the database
db	compare	Compare a directory against the indexed catalog

Development

pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
ruff check src
mypy src

License

MIT - see LICENSE.