Adding Books: Duplicates detected - can this be by Binary Compare rather than Title?

[cgrapski]

I was wondering if there is a way - of if not could it be considered as a future option - that when adding new books - when Calibre says there are duplicates - for this to be set to check for duplicates by binary compare rather than title?

When it is by title - it is often misleading - as there are many reasons that there may be the same title - and there is no way to compare to verify if it is a genuine duplicate at that time.

So I may have two files with the same filename - but they may not be the same book: they may be different versions of the same title, they may be different editions of the same title, they may be different books with the same or similar title, etc - but there is no way to know this unless added - and then checked.

Whereas if this could be set to binary compare the list of duplicates can be actual rather than just possible duplicates.

This would really be helpful when importing a large number of books - when being able to exclude the actual file duplicate from being added could save a great deal of time - without possibly losing desired title "duplicates".

[kovidgoyal]

Use the find duplicates plugin for whatever style of compare you want.

[cgrapski]

Thanks - but that's not what I am asking about.

I know to use the Find Dups plugin - what I am asking about though is when Adding Books - the message that there are X Number of Duplicates appears - and says what is believed to be duplicates - and lets you select which to include and not to include when finalizing the add.

But these are not necessarily duplicates of the SAME book - only the same NAME of the book (or similar). And if I were to deselect them - I am not getting books I intend to add.

But if I am adding a large number of books - the time it takes to add what are thought to be duplicates can be significant - and I would certainly like to be able to choose actual duplicates so they are not added at that time.

Not only saving that time in adding redundant books - but not then requiring me to after run the Find Duplicates plug-in. And then going through them one by one. It would be far more efficient if the feature when adding books was able to detect duplicates by the binary compare rather than the name - to eliminate "false duplicates" from appearing - and thus selecting to not add actual duplicates.

Alternatively - in the box that shows the files considered duplicates - it gives the name comparison and tells what format (extension i.e. PDF or MOBI). (But it thinks a PDF and a MOBI with the same name are duplicate files - when I am intending to add at times different formats of the same book to the library).

If in this window - that appears before finalizing the add - it showed more information - like a hash or even the file size - I would be able to more accurately detect the duplicates and eliminate them before adding.

As of now - I pretty much accept to add ALL of what are thought to be duplicates - and thus Calibre then adds the suspected duplicates (which can take addition significant time - that it would be efficient if I could eliminate) - and then separately running the Find Duplicates by binary compare - getting the found duplicates selected - and then going through them one by one - eliminating the duplicate that I don't want to keep. But that takes a lot of time - that could be eliminated if I was able to remove the duplicates from the ADD process from the start.

[BetterRed]

What many of us do, is add items to a separate "Intake" library and use the Find library duplicates feature to compare what's in there to our "Books" library.

Items that have no duplicate get moved - Copy to Books - (delete after copy) immediately. Items that have duplicates are dealt with 'manually'.

BR

[JSWolf]

After adding books and I get notified about possible duplicates, I add them and then I sort by title. That way I can check the books and see if it may be a duplicate and if so, which one I want to keep.