Czkawka (tch•kav•ka, hiccup) is a simple, fast and easy to use app to remove unnecessary files from your computer.

Features

• Written in memory safe Rust
• Amazingly fast - due to using more or less advanced algorithms and multithreading
• Free, Open Source without ads
• Multiplatform - works on Linux, Windows and macOS
• Cache support - second and further scans should be a lot of faster than the first
• CLI frontend - for easy automation
• GUI frontend - uses modern GTK 3 and looks similar to FSlint
• Rich search option - allows setting absolute included and excluded directories, set of allowed file extensions or excluded items with the * wildcard
• Multiple tools to use:
  • Duplicates - Finds duplicates basing on file name, size, hash, first 1 MB of hash
  • Empty Folders - Finds empty folders with the help of an advanced algorithm
  • Big Files - Finds the provided number of the biggest files in given location
  • Empty Files - Looks for empty files across the drive
  • Temporary Files - Finds temporary files
  • Similar Images - Finds images which are not exactly the same (different resolution, watermarks)
  • Zeroed Files - Finds files which are filled with zeros (usually corrupted)
  • Same Music - Searches for music with same artist, album etc.
  • Invalid Symbolic Links - Shows symbolic links which points to non-existent files/directories
  • Broken Files - Finds files with an invalid extension or that are corrupted

How do I use it?

You can find an instruction on how to use Czkawka here.

Installation

Installation instruction with download links you can find here.

Compilation

If you want try to develop Czkawka or just use the latest available feature, you may want to look at the compilation instruction.

Benchmarks

Since Czkawka is written in Rust and it aims to be a faster alternative to FSlint (which is written in Python), we need to compare the speed of these tools.

I tested it on a 256 GB SSD and a i7-4770 CPU.

I prepared a directory and performed a test without any folder exceptions (I removed all directories from FSlint and Czkawka from other tabs than Include Directory) which contained 229 868 files, took 203.7 GB and had 13 708 duplicate files in 9117 groups which took 7.90 GB.

Minimum file size to check I set to 1 KB on all programs.

App	Executing Time
FSlint 2.4.7 (Second Run)	86s
Czkawka 1.4.0 (Second Run)	12s
DupeGuru 4.0.4 (Second Run)	28s

I used Mprof for checking memory usage FSlint and DupeGuru, for Czkawka I used Heaptrack. To not get a crash from DupeGuru I checked a smaller directory with 217 986 files and 41 883 folders.

App	Idle Ram	Max Operational Ram Usage	Stabilized after search
FSlint 2.4.7	62 MB	84 MB	84 MB
Czkawka 1.4.0	9 MB	66 MB	32 MB
DupeGuru 4.0.4	80 MB	210 MB	155 MB

Similar images which check 332 files which took 1.7 GB

App	Scan time
Czkawka 1.4.0	58s
DupeGuru 4.0.4	51s

Similar images which check 1421 image files which took 110.1 MB

App	Scan time
Czkawka 1.4.0	25s
DupeGuru 4.0.4	92s

So there is still is a lot of room for improvements.

Comparison to other tools

Bleachbit is a master at finding and removing temporary files, while Czkawka only finds the most basic ones. So this two apps shouldn't be compared directly or be considered as an alternative to the second one.

	Czkawka	FSlint	DupeGuru	Bleachbit
Language	Rust	Python	Python/Obj-C	Python
OS	Lin,Mac,Win	Lin	Lin,Mac,Win	Lin,Mac,Win
Framework	GTK 3	PyGTK2	Qt 5 (PyQt)/Cocoa	PyGTK3
Duplicate finder	•	•	•
Empty files	•	•
Empty folders	•	•
Temporary files	•	•		•
Big files	•
Similar images	•		•
Zeroed Files	•
Music duplicates(tags)	•		•
Invalid symlinks	•	•
Broken Files	•
Names conflict	•	•
Installed packages		•
Invalid names		•
Bad ID		•
Non stripped binaries		•
Redundant whitespace		•
Overwriting files		•		•
Multiple languages(po)		•	•	•
Cache support	•		•
In active development	Yes	No	Yes	Yes

Contributions

Contributions to this repository are welcome.

You can help by creating a:

• Bug reports - memory leaks, unexpected behavior, crashes
• Feature proposals - proposal to change/add/delete some features
• Pull Requests - implementing a new feature yourself or fixing bugs. If the change is bigger, then it's a good idea to open a new issue to discuss changes.
• Documentation - There is an instruction which you can improve.

You can also help by doing different things:

• Creating text articles - LinuxUprising or Ubunlog
• Adding Czkawka to repositories - Alpine Linux or NixOS or OpenMandriva
• Creating videos - Tutorial Spanish 1 or Tutorial Spanish 2
• Recommending it to others

Name

Czkawka is a Polish word which means hiccup.

I chose this name because I wanted to hear people speaking other languages pronounce it, so feel free to spell it the way you want.

This name is not as bad as it seems, because I was also thinking about using words like żółć, gżegżółka or żołądź, but I gave up on these ideas because they contained Polish characters, which would cause difficulty in searching for the project.

At the beginning of the program creation, if the response concerning the name was unanimously negative, I prepared myself for a possible change of the name of the program, and the opinions were extremely mixed.

License

Code is distributed under MIT license.

Icon is created by jannuary and licensed CC-BY-4.0.

Windows dark theme is used from AdMin repo with MIT license.

The program is completely free to use.

"Gratis to uczciwa cena" - "Free is a fair price"

Donations

If you are using the app, I would appreciate a donation for its further development, which can be done here.