If you’re a graphics designer, creative professional or someone who deals with a lot of Photoshop PSD files and assets, you might have already got a free complimentary subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud as part of your regular subscription to Adobe CreativeSuite.
While your Adobe Creative Cloud storage allows storing files until the maximum storage capacity is full, there is another restriction. The maximum number of objects that can be stored in your cloud account are 350,000 files and 150,000 folders. Although this may not be a big concern for most hobbyist users and students, professionals whose job involves dealing with a lot of clients may often find themselves running into a situation with no more quota left to store additional files. If you’re running into a similar problem or if you’re running out of your storage space, here is a workaround for you. Delete all duplicate files in your account to make room for new files. Here’s how:
Method 1: Sort Photoshop Cloud Documents & Assets by Name
- Sign-in to your Adobe Cloud account.
- Go to the folder where you want to find scan for duplicate Photoshop documents and other assets.
- Click on the Name column-head to sort all documents and assets by their names.
- As you sort file names in the ascending order, duplicate documents and assets will start showing up underneath the original ones. For example: Original Photoshop files such as garden.psd will appear first, followed by its identical versions such as garden(2).psd, garden(3).psd, etc. Similarly, your Photoshop documents and assets such as flower.svg will appear first, followed by the identical assets such as flower(2).svg, flower(3).svg, etc.
- Delete the duplicate assets that you don’t need. Or even better, move them to a separate folder to review them again before permanent deletion.
Drawbacks:
- This is not a perfect method. Some files may have identical names but different content. They need not be duplicates at all times. It might also be possible that some assets that may appear duplicates may actually be updated versions of the original assets. To avoid accidental data loss, it’s worth reviewing your files carefully one by one before choosing to delete them.
- Your deleted files will appear under the Deleted folder with an icon that resembles trash. Any files in this folder are permanently deleted after a period of 7 days. If you forget to un-delete any files during this period, they are permanently deleted from Adobe’s server.
- Extremely time-consuming.
Method 2: Use the Search Feature
As we learnt in the method above, most duplicates may have suffixes in their file names that contain some sort of text such as – Copy(2), – Copy(3), etc. Just click on the Search icon on the top right corner and type in – Copy. The search result will deliver a list of all potentially duplicate files that contain this suffix. Move all the files to a separate folder and then review them individually before choosing to delete them. To move a file, right-click on it and select the Move option from the right-hand side panel on the screen, and choose the desired location.
Drawbacks:
- Much like the last method, this one is also prone to errors, misjudgements and accidental data loss. It is strongly recommended that you don’t delete any files directly without reviewing.
- Extremely time-consuming.
Method 3: Download All Photoshop Cloud Documents & Assets & Perform Automated Scan (Recommended)
Another way is to download all of your Adobe Cloud files onto the PC. After downloading the files, run a deep duplicate scan to find duplicate Photoshop PSD files and then re-upload only the original files. It’s a relatively safe and automated process. There’s no need to manually review each file unlike Method 1 & 2 above.
- Sign-in to your Adobe Cloud.
- Go to the folder that you want to scan for duplicates.
- Download your files using the Download option on the right-hand side panel.
- While your files are being downloaded, download Clone Files Checker and install it on your system.
- Once all of your files are downloaded, click on the Add button in the Clone Files Checker user interface and select the folder that contains those files.
- Set the Scan Type to All Files and hit the Start Search button.
- As soon as the scan is finished, the search result will display the list of duplicates. Your duplicates are divided by similarity into different groups.
- Use the Select Duplicates button to auto-select bulk duplicate files using a pattern of your choice. Alternatively, you can manually select/ deselect them.
- Finally, click on Select Action and select Permanent Delete or Move to Folder, depending on what you wish to accomplish.
- Once you’ve done deduping the files, delete the already downloaded files from your CreativeCloud account.
- Now, re-upload the scanned files again to Adobe CreativeCloud. To re-upload your scanned files, go to the CreativeCloud website. Click on Home > Upload a file. In the new dialog, you’ll be able to upload multiple files simultaneously.
Benefits:
- Fully-automated scan: You don’t have to manually compare any files, or worry about accidentally deleting important files.
- Supports a wide range of file formats including documents, photos, videos, music, archives, etc.
- With your subscription of Clone Files Checker, you get free access to Cloud Duplicate Finder. Using the CDF web app, you can find duplicates on other cloud storage platforms such as OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Amazon S3, Box Cloud, etc.
- Multiple file selection patterns: You can select hundreds of files with 1-click.
- Backup & Restore: If enabled, your files are automatically backed up prior to deletion.
- History: You can view all the past scan history and action taken reports in the History tab.
- You can specify which file types and file sizes to scan and which ones to exclude.
Drawback:
- There is no direct way to scan your files off the Adobe Creative Cloud platform using Clone Files Checker. If you’re using a slow Internet connection, downloading files and re-uploading a lot of files can become a time-consuming procedure.