Hi, I have no idea how this happened, but I have two folders with a huge amount of files and GB’s that have tons of duplicates and I need to figure out how to combine them so I only have one folder and don’t lose any files.
My iTunes music.
Folder one has 414 GB and 28,000 files
Folder two has 405 GB and 21,235 files. This is the main iTunes folder where imports of CD music go. But as you can see, there are a lot of files in folder one that are not in folder two!
Also, there are files in both folders that I want to keep that aren’t in the other folder! So I can’t just switch to using the larger folder because the smaller one also has some files that aren’t in the larger one.
I want to get rid of folder one, but only after I somehow move the 6765 extra files in that folder over to folder two. I have no way of identifying the 6765 files that are in folder one and not in folder two! That is the problem.
There are graphical tools such as “Duplicate File Finder” on Mac, or merge folder utilities like Beyond Compare that can scan folders, find duplicates, and merge them safely.
Some tools allow to automatically merge folders into one while handling duplicates by comparing file content, size, and date.
In Windows if I copy a bunch of files from Folder A to Folder B, the first time there is a duplicate it pauses and asks me what to do. One option is to not copy the duplicate over, which sounds like what you want. But the key is that, regardless of which you choose, there is an option to do the same for all future duplicates it encounters. Set that option and it will just copy what is not already there.
What if I just copy all the sub-folders in the larger iTunes folder to the smaller iTunes folder? Then I believe a window pops up saying “the destination has ### files with the same names”. And then the option “skip these files”.
That way wouldn’t all the files that are NOT the same would be copied over but none of the ones with the same names?
Why not copy from the smaller folder to the larger folder? Is there a difference? It just seems intuitive to me, unless there is an issue that I’m not aware of…doc
Man that ChatGPT is crazy amazing! Terminator here we come! LOL.
I may still try my copy and paste method first. I’ve already backed up both folders.
Thanks, Rick
Yes, it’s great. I used it all the time on my job. Pick left and right folders to compare, and first see what differences it finds, then you can copy in either direction to merge them or make them identical.
OK, I have my two folders listed. If I want to merge to the right one, I have that circle marked.
Will that accomplish moving any files on the left side that are NOT on the right side to move to the right side?
What next? I’m not seeing a “GO”! button.
Will this make both folders identical?
Thanks.
First click on the Diffs button instead of All, to see only what differences there are. This helps to understand what will get copied. And provide another screen shot!
OK, here’s a “diffs” screenshot. I don’t understand it because it seems to be listing almost everything. Most of the sizes are the same. Just the modified dates are different. Not sure what that means.
The dates differences can add to the confusion. Double click on the first two entries - Credence… and Crosby… - and show the results. It still won’t copy anything. You’re just drilling down to better understand what a copy will do.
Here’s that screenshot. So the date differences could screw up the copying? Since the date is different it will assume they are different files? Yikes!
One more time: drill down on the first bunch of folders up to the blue one until you hit the actual files. I’m curious about those mostly. The folder times are clearly differences, but I think the rules can be altered to not sync folder times.
