Find and remove duplicate documents

Detect duplicate documents and remove the copies you don't need.

1. In the tab (or the Files view), click the Tools menu and choose Duplicate Document Finder.
2. The first time you use the finder in a matter, click Activate when prompted ("Activate duplicate document agent feature? This is currently in BETA so being offered for FREE"). Only the matter's owner can activate the agent; if you have shared (non-owner) access, ask the owner to activate it once for the matter.
3. In the dialog, set the Similarity Threshold (default 70%) and click . The finder returns document pairs at roughly 70% similarity or higher; raise the threshold to narrow the results to closer matches. BriefTech lists candidate pairs in a table: Document A, Document B, and a similarity score. (Use Export to CSV if you want the full list.)
4. For any pair, click Compare to see the two documents side by side, then click on the copy you want to remove. Repeat for each pair you want to resolve.

Binned documents are excluded from the check, so once you move a copy to the bin its pair no longer appears in the results.

You don't have to open Compare to remove a copy. Back in the matter's document list (the Review tab or Files view), you can tick a copy's row — or several rows — and choose from the right-click menu, which confirms before binning. (The finder's own results table doesn't offer row-ticking, so bin from Compare while you're inside it.)

Binned documents can be restored from the view — open it, select the documents, and click Restore. To remove them for good, select them in the Bin and click Delete.

You now have the matter's duplicate pairs reviewed, and the copies you didn't need moved to the bin.

Same-filename warning at upload

If some files in an upload batch share a filename with a document already in the same folder of the matter, the Upload Manager shows a Duplicate Files Detected warning before the batch lands. You can:

• Exclude Documents with the same filename — drop the same-named files from this batch, or
• Upload them anyways — keep them; this creates additional copies alongside the existing documents.

This warning only compares file names within the same folder. To catch duplicates that have different names, run the Duplicate Document Finder after upload (above).

Related

Folders, labels, and collections

How folders, labels, and collections organise documents in a matter.

Organise documents into folders

Create folders and move documents between them.

Apply labels to documents

Create labels and apply them to documents in bulk.

Group documents into a collection

Segment your document set into collections.