I wonder who of the experienced Cuties has experience with embroidery dedupers? I have no idea what is good - only a big fear to lose files completely once I have started to "dedupe". Who can give me advice where and what to buy and what would be a reasonable price for the software?

I had it on the computer that was stolen and found it very useful.

I have "Embroidery Deduper" I find it useful for unzipping and deleting formats that I don't want but it does have its limitations (ie - it doesn't do quite what I would like it too). I ALWAYS have a backup before I use my deduper on my selected files.
I bought it from http://www.gransworkroom.com/soft...
Do a google search on embroidery deduper and have a look at the youtube clips.

I won't use one of these programs -- but sewmom is right. You should back up everything before you begin.
I would think software would have trouble detecting the difference between files like ball.pes versus Ball.pes from 2 separate websites. Files are so small, I just remove any duplicates I don't want as I open and inspect the files. Sometimes the file is updated from the digitizer. Make sure the software you get will choose the newer file and detect the difference between files that are just named the same.

I do not have this program but I would suggest backing up all your files to an external hard drive or some other method of back up before you start.