I know this has been done but not sure where to find it quickly.

[questorfla]

Here is the problem: On a Widows 10 system.  Folder B should be an exact duplicate of Folder A. But a check of each shows that B is about .3 TB larger than A.

A is 1.43 TB    B is 1.73 TB.   I need a way to quickly find out why.   Both A and B contain the same number of 2nd level folders so it is something deeper. Until I know what, it is possible that B has some files or folders that need to be added to A.  Or maybe it has duplicates that need to be deleted.  I don't want to use an automated process that would make that choice for me.

A program that could quickly list Only the folders/files that don't match showing file and folder names and sizes would be perfect. Does anyone have any suggestions? I know I have seen many over the years but none come to mind right away.  And this is a kind of rush job.
  even Beyond compare is reporting at least 45 minutes to complete the comparison run
guess ill just check back tomorrow

[mouser]

free tool: WinMerge, compare the folders show only differences.
http://winmerge.org

(For those who do regular comparisons of files and folders, I'm a big fan of the commercial app Beyond Compare)

[wraith808]

I use the commercial app CompareIt!/SynchronizeIt! and love it.

That said, are the two folders on the same drive or different drives?  Are the drives formatted the same if they are different?

[questorfla]

wraith two drives one is 5TB  the other is 6TB
both are sata both are GPT format
once i get this all finished there will be several more main folders on the 6 tb
at which time i plan to clone it to another 6 tb for use on another system
the problem at this point is more of  WHY are they so different.  Each item was transferred one piece at a time from about 60 sub-folders

BUT  it took place over too long a time,.  It is possible that for some reason, something got duplicated or misplaced or ??

i had one person recommend FC but that is way too slow and creating the dir.txt or whatever type file is too time consuming.  Took almost 10 minutes to create the first one and it is 80 mb in size.  I KNOW Notepad wont open it and don't know how long FC would take even after i create the 2nd 80mb file to compare it with.
i think I will go for one of the two programs ..
CompareIt!/SynchronizeIt!
or
WinMerge,
Thanks to your both

[Deozaan]

I second WinMerge if you only want to compare the contents of two files/folders (and subfolders). It may not be as nice as some of the other options listed, but it's free and it is good enough for a comparison now and then.


I also suggest you change this thread's subject to something more helpful. Something which would give people who are browsing the forums the idea that they should read this thread if they're looking for a way to compare two folders.

[Shades]

Gentlemen, may I present: MultiCommander. The link describes the 'Search' functionality from this freeware file manager, but there are a lot more things possible.

With Directory Opus it is pretty easy to find where the differences in a folder structure are. You can enable a function to automatically count the size of a folder and it appears very quickly in view next to the folder name. MultiCommander has similar functionality. While not as smooth as in Directory Opus, it does work. You can then use the dual pane view, point each of the pane to the folders you want to compare and start the folder size counter. Identifying which folder is different becomes pretty simple.

If you have often these kind of jobs, just as Directory Opus, MultiCommander has scripting options and it allows you to create buttons that allow you to unleash (your own) scripts on the file(s)/folder(s) you have selected. Again, it isn't as smooth as Directory Opus in this regard either, but as freeware file managers go, this is a seriously impressive feature. You can even link batch scripts to buttons with the included editor.

Granted, initially it is more work to get the immediate job done, but I think that with a bit of digging and tweaking, you'll have a Swiss pocket-knife of a tool to do some serious work with files at the touch of a few buttons.

[4wd]

even Beyond compare is reporting at least 45 minutes to complete the comparison run

-questorfla (April 16, 2019, 01:28 PM)

You're doing it the hard way, set BeyondCompare to display differences only, don't have it automatically compare contents, load the folder trees into it, (one a side), then just look for folders that are tinted red or blue, expand those folders until the file differences are displayed.

Takes less than a minute because you can do it while it's running through the basic folder comparison.

Tinted blue: an item doesn't exist in the other tree (name)
Tinted red: an item in one tree differs from the same item in the other tree (date/time, size)

eg. Less than 10 seconds on my netbook for a simple folder difference highlight:
I know this has been done but not sure where to find it quickly.

[anandcoral]

even Beyond compare is reporting at least 45 minutes to complete the comparison run

-questorfla (April 16, 2019, 01:28 PM)

You're doing it the hard way, set BeyondCompare to display differences only, don't have it automatically compare contents, load the folder trees into it, (one a side), then just look for folders that are tinted red or blue, expand those folders until the file differences are displayed.

Takes less than a minute because you can do it while it's running through the basic folder comparison.

Tinted blue: an item doesn't exist in the other tree (name)
Tinted red: an item in one tree differs from the same item in the other tree (date/time, size)

eg. Less than 10 seconds on my netbook for a simple folder difference highlight:

-4wd (April 17, 2019, 01:37 AM)

Yes. This is the correct way and I do it frequently, while synchronizing backups from office and home.

Regards,

Anand

[ConstanceJill]

I'd use FreeFileSync. See how it looks : https://freefilesync.org/screenshots.php