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Need to merge folders and data without losing files.

James | Dec 20 2007

Hello,

I am new to this forum, but have been listening to merlin and reading for a long time. I will get right to the problem.

My data is a mess. I have a 500gb external drive bulging at the seams with duplicate files and folders. The problem occurred because my wife and I both backup to this drive. We now have our own folders full of the same files(mostly music). Now bear with me. I hope this doesn't get too complicated.

At the moment I have a drive that looks similar to this

z:\my music\joe smith\track a, b, c, d etc.

z:\her music\joe smith\track a

i need to find an app or script or something that will allow me to merge both joe smith folders combining the tracks without deleting.

Anybody know of a way to do that?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. My hard drive is getting full, and I am not looking forward to fixing this problem by hand.

Thanks

‹ very low-fi hipster new laptop ›
4 Comments
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TOPICS: Productivity & Time Management, folders, merge
mwr's picture

I don’t think Windows

Submitted by mwr on January 2, 2008 - 6:18am.

I don't think Windows operates the way you describe, or at least I wasn't able to verify your description. Quick example I tried:

  1. Extracted the same zip file into two different folders (let's call them "Larger" and "Smaller").

  2. Made a "Target" folder.

  3. Deleted several files from two different levels of folders in the Smaller tree.

  4. Copied the contents of Larger to Target. Target's size and file/folder count was identical to Larger's.

  5. Copied the contents of Smaller to Target. Got a warning of "This folder already contains a folder named 'foo'. If the files in the existing folder have the same name as files in the folder you are moving or copying, they will be replaced. Do you want to move or copy the folder?". Clicked Yes. Target's size and file/folder count was unchanged from before.

None of the lighter folders from Smaller deleted anything. And it looks like it didn't matter if I used "move" instead of "copy", either. See if you can reproduce that. All my tests were on a single drive, but I don't think going across drives will make a difference.

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