[NewsPoster]

There is a saying that nothing digital really exists unless it exists twice: if there isn't a copy of it somewhere, then the one original is in such danger of being lost that it might as well be gone already. However, this is a reason to make backups: it's not a reason to duplicate our files all over the place yet that is somehow what we do. You included. Very much you included: stop trying to look innocent. You have multiple copies of the same Word document and you've definitely got duplicated photos, admit it. Stage 1 of reclaiming space on your hard drive is admitting that you've got a problem. Stage 2 could be buying Gemini 2.0 for OS X.

This is an app that scours over all your storage so you don't have to. It looks under the carpets, it picks photos and holds them up to the light to have a proper compare, then it lays everything out and asks you to justify yourself. Why exactly do you have four copies of the same video footage, hmm?

This updated version of Gemini does what the original did and shows you the files and where they are so that you can examine them. Then again as it did before, Gemini will delete whatever you tell it to. We honestly get twitchy at the word 'delete' but then this probably speaks more about us than it does Gemini. Plus it may account for how in a 934GB Documents folder it found 96GB of duplicates. Note that it found those in our overstuffed Documents folder: you can choose to examine your entire hard disk or just certain folders in it. You're going to automatically set it running over the whole thing but that's an awful lot of disk space to check. We found our Macs ran slower while Gemini 2 was doing its thing, though we also found that completely reasonable. This is software to set running and walk away from, possibly even overnight. There's no getting away from how much it finds. It's both impressive and sobering to realise while we've scrabbled for space we've been wasting so much of it. We wouldn't and didn't use Gemini to delete from any hard drive we hadn't just backed up in case, but we didn't see even the merest hint of a problem with what the app called a duplicate. It's smart stuff: if you set it running across all your storage, you can also tell it to never mark any duplicates in your Documents folder.

We keep saying duplicates but while there are plenty of exact copies of documents on our Macs, there are more that are just similar and this is really the benefit of version 2. If you took 40 photographs of the same sunset then Gemini can find them even though their names are different –– your camera will have seen to that –– and they were taken at different times. Fractionally different, but still not identical and so they would be missed by most apps but Gemini 2 is excellent at spotting them. The first time we ran it and saw that list of nearly 100GB files, we weren't entirely sure what to do. You get a list of the duplicated files but it compiles the list so that all of a document's duplicates are grouped together with it. By default, you see the title plus some details of what the file is but you have click on a disclosure triangle to see each file. When you do that, you then see where they each are. You can end up spending a lot of time looking through that list; enough so that you will look over your shoulder and around your desk before saying go on, then, delete them all. We're the hyper-cautious sort so we never do that. Never. Mind you, we're also the hyper-cautious sort that is glad there is a trial version on the official Gemini 2 website. It's limit in how much it can help you actually remove but it will show you just what a sorry state your storage is in.

If you then choose to ignore this information and turn your head away, well, don't come to us the next time you have to buy more hard drives. When you like what Gemini 2 does, you can buy it from the official site for either a bargain or an outright steal. Its official price is $20 but at time of writing is available for a launch price of $10. We said that it's the finding of similar files as well as exact duplicates that marks Gemini 2 out from its version 1 predecessor. However, there is also the design of the app: it's not as if you're going to be staring at it for very long yet there is a rather gorgeous new look to the app which makes it easier to use and also just more pleasurable. Gemini 2.0 requires OS X 10.10 or higher and is on the official site. Who is Gemini 2.0 for: There are alternatives that do the same thing, including Gemini makers MacPaw's own CleanMyMac but if you don't have anything to find duplicates, you need one and this is fast and clever about it. Who is Gemini 2.0 not for: Maybe you really are more disciplined than us in which case you can search all you like for a Christmas e-card from us, you aren't getting one. -William Gallagher (@WGallagher) Readers: do you have an app that you'd like to see us review? Developers: do you want us to take a look at your app? Send your suggestions to our Tips email.