Ubuntu Manpage: fdupes-help - fdupes interactive mode reference

NAME

       fdupes-help - fdupes interactive mode reference

INTRODUCTION

       When  run  interactively  (as  fdupes --delete), fdupes will show a list of duplicates and
       prompt the user for further action.

       The user can tell fdupes which files to keep or delete by tagging them  accordingly.  Once
       tagged,  the  user  can  instruct  fdupes  to  delete  any files that have been tagged for
       deletion. This can be done incrementally, if desired, successively tagging and deleting  a
       limited number of files at a time until no more duplicates remain to be processed.

       There are several ways to tag files in fdupes: individually using the cursor, by providing
       a list of files to keep, or by selecting files that match particular search  criteria  and
       tagging  those as desired. Each of these approaches is discussed in detail in the sections
       below.

SCROLLING THE LIST

       The list of duplicates can be scrolled as follows:

       PAGE DOWN
              Scroll down to the next page.

       PAGE UP
              Scroll up to preceding page.

       SHIFT + DOWN
              Scroll down by one line. Not supported on some terminals.

       SHIFT + UP
              Scroll up by one line. Not supported on some terminals.

MOVING THE CURSOR

       The cursor tells fdupes which file and/or set of duplicates to act on, as described in the
       next section. The cursor's position can be changed as follows:

       DOWN   Advance cursor to the next file on the list.

       UP     Move cursor back to the previous file.

       TAB    Advance cursor to the next set of duplicates.

       BACKSPACE
              Move cursor back to the previous set.

       F3     Advance cursor to the next selected set, if any.

       F2     Move cursor back to the previous selected set, if any.

       It is also possible to jump directly to a particular set:

       'goto <index>'
              Move cursor to the top of the set indicated by index.

TAGGING FILES USING THE CURSOR

       Individual  files  can  be  tagged using the keys below. These keys all act on the current
       file, as identified by the cursor.

       SHIFT + RIGHT
              Tag current file for keeping.

       SHIFT + LEFT
              Tag current file for deletion.

       '?'    Remove tag from current file.

       Entire sets of files can be tagged by providing a list of  indices  in  a  comma-separated
       list.  Files  in  the  current  set  whose  indices  appear on the list will be tagged for
       keeping, while any other files in that set will be tagged for deletion. As with individual
       files, the current set is identified by the cursor.

       As an example, given the following list of duplicates:

              Set 1 of 5:

                1 [ ] path/to/file_a
                2 [ ] path/to/file_b
                3 [ ] path/to/file_c

       Typing  '1,  3' at the prompt and pressing ENTER will tell fdupes to tag file_a and file_c
       for keeping, and file_b for deletion. The special command 'all' will  tag  all  files  for
       keeping.

       There is one more command to deal with files in the current set:

       'rg'   Remove tags from all files in current set.

FILE SELECTION COMMANDS

       Another  way  to tag files is to first select them according to particular search criteria
       and then tell fdupes what to do with them. The following commands can be  used  to  select
       files for tagging:

       'sel <text>'
              Select any files whose paths contain the given text.

       'selb <text>'
              Select any files whose paths begin with the given text.

       'sele <text>'
              Select any files whose paths end with the given text.

       'selm <text>'
              Select any file whose path matches the given text exactly.

       'selr <expression>'
              Select any files whose paths match the given regular expression (see below).

       'dsel <text>'
              Deselect any files whose paths contain the given text.

       'dselb <text>'
              Deselect any files whose paths begin with the given text.

       'dsele <text>'
              Deselect any files whose paths end with the given text.

       'dselm <text>'
              Deselect any file whose path matches the given text exactly.

       'dselr <expression>'
              Deselect any files whose paths match the given regular expression (see below).

       'csel' Clear all selections.

       'isel' Invert selections within selected sets. For example, if files 1 and 4 in a set of 5
              are selected, isel will deselect files 1 and 4, and  select  files  2,  3,  and  5.
              Immediately  repeating the same command will deselect files 2, 3, and 5, and select
              files 1 and 4, restoring selections to their previous state.

TAGGING SELECTED FILES

       Once some files have been selected using  the  commands  described  above,  the  following
       commands can be used to tag selected files as desired:

       'ks'   Tag selected files for keeping.

       'ds'   Tag selected files for deletion.

       'rs'   Remove all tags from selected files.

DELETING DUPLICATES

       Once  tagged  for  deletion,  files can be deleted by pressing DELETE or using the 'prune'
       command. Fdupes will delete any files that are tagged for deletion  and  delist  any  sets
       whose  remaining files have been tagged for keeping. For safety, fdupes will refuse to act
       on sets for which all files have been tagged for deletion. To handle these cases,  tag  at
       least one file for keeping and run the delete command again.

OTHER COMMANDS

       'exit', 'quit'
              Exit the program.

       'help' Display this help text.

REGULAR EXPRESSIONS

A regular expression is a sequence of characters defining a search pattern against which
other character sequences can be compared. Strings of characters that follow the pattern
defined by an expression are said to match the expression, whereas strings that break the
pattern do not.

The syntax for regular expressions used by fdupes is known as the Perl Compatible Regular
Expression syntax. A detailed description of regular expression syntax is beyond the scope
of this document. For detailed information the user is encouraged to consult the PCRE2
documentation:

https://www.pcre.org/current/doc/html/pcre2syntax.html

Briefly, here are some examples of regular expressions:

abc123 Will match any string containing the sequence abc123, such as abc123, abc123x,
xabc123, and xabc123x.

^abc123
Will match any string beginning with abc123, such as abc123 and abc123x, but not
xabc123 or xabc123x. The character '^' has special meaning, telling the program to
match only those strings that begin with the pattern that follows.

abc123$
Will match any string that ends with abc123, such as abc123 and xabc123, but not
abc123x or xabc123x. The character '$' has special meaning, telling the program to
match only those strings that end with the preceding pattern.

^abc123$
Will match the string abc123 and no other.

ab.123 Will match any string containing abc123 as in the first example, but it will also
match strings containing abz123, ab0123, ab_123, etc. The character '.' has special
meaning, acting as a placeholder that will match any character in that position.

^a.*3$ Will match any string beginning with the letter a and ending with the number 3,
such as abc123, a3, and a0b1c2d3. Here the character '*' tells the program to
accept any number of appearances (including none) for the preceding item (here, any
character matching the placeholder character '.'). The characters '^' and '$' have
the same meaning as in previous examples.

abc\d+ Will match any string containing the characters abc followed immediately by one or
more decimal digits, such as abc123 and abc3210, but not abcd123 or abc 123 (note
the space). Here \d is a placeholder for any decimal digit, while the character '+'
tells the program to match one or more appearances of the preceding character or
placeholder (here, \d).

\w+\d+ Will match any string containing one or more "word" characters followed immediately
by one or more decimal digits, such as abc123 and abcd3210, but not abc 123 (note
the space). Here \w is a placeholder for a "word" character, and \d and '+' have
the same meaning as in the preceding example.

This is just scratching the surface of what can be done with regular expressions. Consult
the PCRE2 documentation for a complete reference.