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Author Topic: Looking for program that can copy folder hierarchy with checkboxes and size est.  (Read 13775 times)

mouser

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I'm looking for an app that would let me select from a deep hierarchy of folders -- checking the folders i want to copy to a destination folder, while showing me size estimates of the total selected, and then copy from source to destination.

An example of using this would be if i have a large music collection and i want to copy a subset of it that will fit on a 64gb drive.

The key is being able to check/select arbitrary items at arbitrary locations in the hierarchy, and keep the hierarchy intact when copying.

Anyone know of a tool that can do this?

tomos

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I believe Dopus can do this - but maybe you're looking for something more focused (?)
Other file managers may also be able to do this too.


Turn on 'Flat view/Grouped' (I've modified my toolbars and shortcuts - I think this under the 'Folder options' button) - you can now see the hierarchy and all files
Turn on check-box mode in folder options (see help for more info) - shows check-box for selection
=> select folders / files
copy/move
you will be asked if you want to recreate the hierarchy

Note: I'm not sure how this will work when simultaneously copying from various levels in the hierarchy (but presume it will work)
The default statusbar will show size of selected items

EDIT: see if anyone else chimes in here - this is not working for me on Windows 8.1 -
I am not getting asked if I want to recreate the hierarchy. (FWIW, I do get asked that when synchronising and when I then manually select what to copy.) Wont be able to check on Win.7 desktop till maybe Monday ...
Tom
« Last Edit: February 28, 2015, 04:11 PM by tomos »


mouser

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Thanks for the replies folks.
Tomos those are some pretty neat Directory Opus tricks, I may have to explore the flat and checkbox modes in a bit..
Having said that, it actually looks like perhaps Beyond Compare, one of my most essential tools -- may be able to do this flawlessly.. Another victory for BC... with the added bonus that I already own it!

4wd

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EDIT: see if anyone else chimes in here - this is not working for me on Windows 8.1 -
I am not getting asked if I want to recreate the hierarchy.

Works fine:

2015-03-01 15_43_54.jpg

Do note that while you can turn on Calculate folder sizes, it'll only do it for the parent, any sub-folders don't get calculated and aren't added to the running total in the Status bar, (as you can see from the bits I've highlighted - a folder with ~36MB of files but only ~10MB in the running total).

I don't know if there is a setting that will propagate the folder selection to included files, this would fix the total size selected discrepancy.

kunkel321

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XYplorer also has some folder structure copying abilities.  It also lets your do size reports, though I don't know if these functions can be integrated.  (I'm sure this could be scripted though).  Also not use if free XY can do it or if you need pro. 

xtabber

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it actually looks like perhaps Beyond Compare, one of my most essential tools -- may be able to do this flawlessly.. Another victory for BC... with the added bonus that I already own it!
I was going to suggest Beyond Compare, which I use for that purpose.

What was not clear from the original post was whether you want to keep the folder structure or copy files from multiple folders into a single folder. 

I keep music organized in folders for each album within category folders, within overall type folders, so a specific track might be \Multimedia\MP3\Classical\Album_name\Track_number on my hard disk. I also keep a lot of identifying information in text, pdf and image files at various levels in that hierarchy, but don't want to copy most of that to the USB stick or SD card in a player.

BC preserves directory structure when copying and will copy only the files selected while creating the folder hierarchy containing them on the destination, starting from the base folders.  So if I set \Multimedia\MP3\Classical\ as base on the hard disk and \Music\ on the USB stick, and copy \Multimedia\MP3\Classical\Album1\Track1 to the USB stick, the track will go to \Music\Album1\Track1, with folder Album1 created on the fly if it does not already exist in the destination base folder.

This is the way I do it, but if what you want is to place multiple selected tracks from different folders into a single folder on the destination end, you would use the "Copy to folder" command from the Action menu, then enter the destination folder and select "Don't keep folder structure" in the dialog box.

By the way, BC works great over ftp, so it can be used in much the same way to manage music and ebook collections over WiFi on Android devices that do not have removable SD cards (there are many Android ftp server apps on Google Play).

tomos

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[Re: Dopus]
Do note that while you can turn on Calculate folder sizes, it'll only do it for the parent, any sub-folders don't get calculated and aren't added to the running total in the Status bar, (as you can see from the bits I've highlighted - a folder with ~36MB of files but only ~10MB in the running total).

I don't know if there is a setting that will propagate the folder selection to included files, this would fix the total size selected discrepancy.

a workaround (after expanding the flat view) is:
  • Ctrl+A to select all items
  • the action 'Calculate Folder Sizes' (menu:Edit) will now work for all folders
  • then invert selection (Ctrl+I) to deselect all

What's also not ideal, is that ticking a folder does not automatically tick the contents of that folder, (yet those contents will copy). It's a bit ambiguous - also awkward if one wants to use the tick-boxes to select, say, 90% of those contents: you have to tick them on an individual basis (instead of select all contents by clicking on parent and then deselecting the unwanted 10%).
_________
Re: the Recreate folder structure dialogue - it does not get offered** if you copy only individual files from one 'level'. That may have been what confused me on my Win.8 laptop.

** EDIT// there's definitely something funny going on: now it is getting offered. I think there's a bug there somewhere as it didnt get offered in at least three copy attempts (just before writing this post).
Tom
« Last Edit: March 01, 2015, 11:19 AM by tomos »

mouser

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What's also not ideal, is that ticking a folder does not automatically tick the contents of that folder, (yet those contents will copy). It's a bit ambiguous
agreed. the standard behavior in apps is usually that ticking and unticking a parent will recursively tick or untick the children.  i wonder why dir opus doesn't follow that convention.

xtabber

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XYplorer lets you list all files in a hierarchy as a single list with checkboxes and copy those checked to a destination folder.  If you don't want to preserve folder hierarchy, that's a little easier than Beyond Compare.

Both Beyond Compare and XYplorer display the total size of selected files in the status bar.

conceptworld

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Yes. True. Copywhiz can perform these operations. Instead of ticking each item, you would need to include/exclude them by names.

kunkel321

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Here's a screenshot of the XY thing, by the way...


mouser

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A flat source file list may be useful in some cases, but not in my case -- I need to be able to quickly choose large folders from a hierarchy for copying.

kunkel321

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The source (shown in the previous picture) is actually the results of a search.  The actual files are being copied from different folders, which is why it gave me the "Rich Copy?" dialog...    It does appear that you can 'find' by size too.
 


As mentioned before, all if this could be probably be scripted into a single command...  There are script wizards on the forum.  I'll post your OP there and then link this and that...

EDIT:  Here you go Mouser,
http://www.xyplorer.....php?f=3&t=13515
You'll probably have to make a forum account if you want to post anything. 
« Last Edit: March 06, 2015, 09:55 AM by kunkel321 »

tomos

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from the XY forum link:
Only thing to keep in mind: if you tick a folder AND any of its contents, these contents will be counted twice.

Odd, XYplorer seems to use the same system as Dopus (see image from above XY thread):
if you tick a folder, it's contents are selected, but the tickboxes for the files are left blank.

Maybe there is an advantage to that approach, but the disadvantage (as said above) is that when you want to select, say, 98% of the contents - you will have to tick each file individually - instead of simply deselecting a couple of files.
Tom

kunkel321

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I don't know...  Seems more logical that if you checkmark a folder, then the contents should get checked....  YOu could then (optionally) uncheck some.

tomos

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I don't know...  Seems more logical that if you checkmark a folder, then the contents should get checked....  YOu could then (optionally) uncheck some.

yeah - that's what me and mouser meant
although I see he's more interested in folders:

A flat source file list may be useful in some cases, but not in my case -- I need to be able to quickly choose large folders from a hierarchy for copying.
Tom

kunkel321

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As it turns out, XY v15 seems to have made some changes to how checkboxes are handled.  I haven't had time to experiment with it yet.  As far as quickly identifying the larger folders:  I personally would use filtering, or color coding, which XY can do, and I sure DO probably can too.