GNKnow helps file collecting people to check quickly if the new files are already seen or really new, even if the original files are in an archive on not accessible media or the original files were deleted ("remember bad ones"). The found duplicates could be deleted (in future extensions maybe moved or batch processed). The remaining yet unknown files can be added to the knowledge database that they are known for future compares.

GNKnow compares files by content and needs only a fingerprint (about 100 bytes per database entry) of the file to identify it by content.

GNknow can compare whole directories and subdirectories to find identical files (by content) and find duplicates in a directory tree.