The file_db tool loads the metadata of your files and directories into a PostgreSQL database, from Windows, Linux, or OSX, to allow for easy analysis and control of your file system. There is a bundled interactive shell for ease of use, or power users can hook directly into the database with custom applications and plugins, or even query the database directly with SQL.

• Load a computer's file and directory metadata into PostgresSQL, including names, sizes, checksum hashes, and things like media dimensions or length.
• An intelligent scheduler crawls your file system for changes to keep your directory data up to date in the database, without hammering your hard drive.
• Leverage a growing list of built-in tools to work with the data to observe trends, identify duplicate files, track file system changes, mass copy/move/delete, and more.
• The database is accessible to query directly with SQL, so you can dig right into the data. The database contains many pre-made functions to make life easy.

file_db collects a file's size and checksum hash (both MD5 and SHA-1), which can be used to compare files for duplicates. You can search for duplicates of a single file, or of a list of files (such as the contents of a directory), using the included user interface. Software developers can also leverage this feature through database functions, or direct SQL.

Search for the duplicates for a single file:

• Via the interactive shell:

  • Input: search duplicate_file "C:\my_file.txt"
  • Output:

• Via SQL functions:

  • Input: SELECT * FROM search_duplicate_file('C:\my_file.txt')
  • Output:

• Direct SQL:

  • Input:

    SELECT * 
    FROM
        -- Pull the list of files to find the meta data of the comparison file
        vw_ll src
        -- Join all the files to the source file by SHA-1 hash and the file size
        INNER JOIN vw_ll dup
            on (src.sha1_hash=dup.sha1_hash and src.file_size=dup.file_size)
    WHERE
        src.full_path='C:\my_file.txt'

  • Output: