How does the duplicate detection feature work?

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If you try to save a file that is already in the vault, M-Files lets you know. M-Files shows you the duplicate documents to which you have permissions.

M-Files compares only the file content of the documents. Thus, their metadata can be different. For example, the duplicate documents can have a different name, version history, permissions, and workflow.

The feature does the comparison on a binary level with MD5 checksums. M-Files shows duplicate file content for documents that have the same MD5 value.

Note: In some cases, the MD5 value can be different even when the file content of the compared documents is the same. This happens because some files formats store additional metadata in the file which changes the MD5 value.