macOS · Audio & Samples
The same kick drum,
in forty project folders.
Every session that used it copied it in. Every project template brought its own. Sample packs overlap with sample packs, and Logic and Ableton both keep their own copies of what you consolidated. None of it is re-encoded — it is the same bytes, forty times — which is exactly the kind of duplication that can be found with certainty.
Free to try, no account required.
How sample libraries get like this
Consolidating a project copies everything it uses
That is the point of it — a session that carries its own audio still opens in five years. It also means every project holds a copy of every sample it touched, and forty projects hold forty copies.
Packs overlap, and the overlap is invisible
The same one-shots are licensed into multiple packs under different names in different folders. Nothing about the filenames tells you, and nothing in Finder compares contents.
Bounces are not duplicates, even when they sound identical
Two exports of the same mix at different bitrates are genuinely different files. Any tool claiming to catch those is doing acoustic analysis, which is a different and much less certain kind of claim — and worth knowing which one you are buying.
Deleting the wrong copy breaks a session, not a file
Remove the copy a project references and the project opens with a gap in it, possibly months later. This is why "which copy survives" matters more here than in a Downloads folder.
What VaultSort does about it
Verified byte for byte
Files are grouped by size, then by a hash of their first 64 KB, and only survivors of both get a full-content hash. A sample copied into forty folders under four names is one file, found with certainty rather than with a similarity score.
Nothing is deleted by default
Duplicates move into a folder you nominate. For a sample library that is the right trade — you can open a session, confirm nothing is missing, and only then get rid of the pile.
A keep rule you can predict
The copy that survives is the oldest by modification time, with ties broken by the shortest path. In practice that keeps the sample in your library and moves the copies out of project folders, which is usually the direction you want.
Hardlinks are collapsed, not counted
Two paths sharing the same storage are recognised as one file, so you are never offered space that removing them could not free.
Fast on drives that are mostly audio
Anything with a unique size is eliminated without being read, so a 4 TB sample drive is not 4 TB of reading. The full hash runs only on genuine candidates.
Organize first, if the folder is chaotic
Grouping a dumping-ground folder by type before scanning makes the results far easier to judge, and organizing is fully reversible.
What it does not do yet
- — There is no acoustic matching. Two bounces of the same track at different bitrates, or the same sample re-encoded from WAV to MP3, are different files and will not be paired. If that is the job you need done, this is not the tool for it.
- — Scan project folders knowing that consolidated audio is meant to be there. A project that carries its own copies is a project that will still open in five years — deduplicating that away is a decision, not a clean-up.
- — The scanner skips filesystem bookkeeping only. It carries no exclusion list for plugin caches or application support directories, so point it at your sample drive or a projects folder rather than at your whole home directory.
- — Symbolic links are never followed, so a sample reachable only through an alias outside the folder you scanned will not appear.
Questions people ask
Will it find the same sample saved as WAV and as AIFF?
No. Different container, different bytes, different file. Matching is on content, which makes it certain about what it does find and blind to re-encodings.
Is it safe to run on my Logic or Ableton projects?
Scanning is always safe — nothing is modified. Be deliberate about acting on the results: consolidated project audio is duplicated on purpose, and moving it out is what makes a project stop opening cleanly years later.
What is the safest way to do this on a sample drive?
Move duplicates rather than deleting them, into a folder on the same drive. Open two or three of your heaviest sessions. If nothing is missing, delete the folder. If something is, drag it back.
How long does a 4 TB sample drive take?
Bounded by the drive rather than the software, and less than reading 4 TB — most files are eliminated on size alone without being opened. Start it and leave it.
Try it on your own files
One purchase, no subscription. $24.99 once, and every feature is included.