Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
Looking for Software with this feature
MilesAhead:
Here is an example of moving a file of same name into a folder that already has a file with the same name, but the two files have a different size. Windows 7 already determined that they have different sizes. This is the reason why I believe it should be possible for a programmer to create a program with such a filter.
-ednja (July 01, 2015, 05:52 PM)
--- End quote ---
The trouble with coding that is you have to handle all the other cases. Which means you have to write a file/move/copy utility from scratch. There are already a ton of file managers for Windows. I would search out one with the desired feature. First place I would look is here:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-file-manager.htm
Be sure to read the user comments as they often suggest file managers that are not very well known yet. Often they are free.
Edit: Also see xyplorer name collission handling on move:
http://www.xyplorer.com/whatsnew.php
tomos:
I *think* the requests in OP could be done with Syncovery (formerly SFFS - syncing & backup software).
Can check tomorrow on desktop.
Disadvantage is you would need to set it up a sync 'job'.
I'd love some kind of manual & very flexible copy/sync programme myself, where these things could be done on the fly, but I haven't really looked at any of the copy programmes out there... I use Dopus as file manager & love it, but copy/move is limited at times I find.
MilesAhead:
I *think* the requests in OP could be done with Syncovery (formerly SFFS - syncing & backup software).
Can check tomorrow on desktop.
Disadvantage is you would need to set it up a sync 'job'.
I'd love some kind of manual & very flexible copy/sync programme myself, where these things could be done on the fly, but I haven't really looked at any of the copy programmes out there... I use Dopus as file manager & love it, but copy/move is limited at times I find.
-tomos (July 02, 2015, 04:40 PM)
--- End quote ---
I was just looking at Dopus. Since so many here love it I will run the trial and see if it grabs me. The other approach, which may be a bit drastic, would be to find an open source file manager or copy program and add the feature. But that could be a whole lot of work. Especially if it needs a certain compiler that is not even installed etc..
Edit: Or find something on Sourceforge and request the feature be added.
IainB:
I was following up on @MilesAhead's comment which had caught my interest as I had not previously tried out RichCopy:
I would take a look at RichCopy
It was written by a Microsoft Employee so it likely has rules or filters xcopy and robocopy do not.
______________________________
-MilesAhead (June 30, 2015, 09:33 AM)
--- End quote ---
RichCopy looked to have some uniquely useful functionality, so I have downloaded and installed it - thanks for the tip! :Thmbsup:
Now I might be missing something here, so I apologise in advance if I have it wrong, but since I had only skimmed over the OP and had not actually read it fully, I thought I should at least try and understand it, so I read about the requirement for the two Filters:
...
* Filter #1: If the file being moved has the same name, extension and size as a file already existing in the target folder, then overwrite the existing file.
* Filter #2: If the file being moved has the same name and extension as a file already existing in the target folder, but the two files are different in size, then move the file, but keep both files.
______________________________
-ednja (June 29, 2015, 11:22 PM)
--- End quote ---
On reading the OP, it occurred to me that the requirement in Filter #1 would seem to be redundant, since, if a file about to be moved had the same name, extension and size as a file already existing in the target folder, then there would be no need to move it and overwrite the existing file in the target, and thus you would leave it as-is.
"Size" could be a potentially unreliable comparison, so I would recommend using "Content" instead.
What could be useful, therefore, would be to verify whether files in the source directory with identical name/extension to files in the target directory were actually identical in content (~size), and only overwrite/copy (one way or the other) if the content were different and perhaps depending on the date. I would use a file checksum comparison between the two.
Normally this would seem to be a kinda paranoid check, but I actually do it when verifying my archived (backup) files, and it's a piece of cake to do it using xplorer². In the example below, I've just used two panes showing views of two folders - Source and Target - but xplorer² could enable the user to run this verification whilst syncing nested Source directories (plural) and the corresponding nested Target directories, in the LHS and RHS panes, respectively. This would only apply where the directory trees were identical. You could also use flat files to get a view of the scale of the overall problem.
The above also gives you the files for Filter #2, so that you can then copy/move all those (already auto-selected) in the Source folder into the Target folder, keeping the names in the Target, but automatically incrementing by +1 for the newly-copied/moved files, so nothing in the Target folder will have been overwritten/destroyed. However, it would probably be preferable to use a backup tool (e.g. something with versioning, like FreeFileSync) for this, so that the Target file name remained unchanged, and the older version was moved to a version folder.
tomos:
Filter #1: If the file being moved has the same name, extension and size as a file already existing in the target folder, then overwrite the existing file.
Filter #2: If the file being moved has the same name and extension as a file already existing in the target folder, but the two files are different in size, then move the file, but keep both files.
-ednja (June 29, 2015, 11:22 PM)
--- End quote ---
I *think* the requests in OP could be done with Syncovery (formerly SFFS - syncing & backup software).
Can check tomorrow on desktop.
Disadvantage is you would need to set it up a sync 'job'.
-tomos (July 02, 2015, 04:40 PM)
--- End quote ---
No, I checked, and Syncovery does not seem to be able to do both of these.
The relevant choices for move are shown below - it's not as detailed as you want (only one choice possible in this dialogue)
edit: to be honest, I find the options here in Syncovery not fully clear - it doesnt in this dialogue differentiate between identical and different files. I find it a little confusing...
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version