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jmes7827

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 22, 2011
2
0
After two days of running Lion, I have restored both Mac's to SL. Lion caused a couple problems that I could live with until Apples fixes the bugs (Screen Sharing doesn't work, et. al.), but there was one change to Finder that I just can't live with. I know, you are going to read this and think that it isn't a big deal, but it is to me.

I try to keep many of the directories in sync between my two Mac's (MBPro + iMac.) In the SL finder, if I were to highlight all the contents of a dir on the iMac and dragged it to the matching dir on the MBPro and released the mouse button, Finder would inform me that there were duplicate files/subdirs. It would then present the options to "Don't Replace" (the target files with the source files,) "Stop" (to stop the copy) or "Replace" (the target files with the source files.) And of course, there is the "Apply To All" option. These options make PERFECT sense.

The Lion Finder presents different options. Imagine I am trying to sync 9GB of data between the two Mac's where almost all of it is already in common. When the new Finder notices the duplicates, the options are "Keep Both" (copy everything to the target and append an unique number where there are duplicates,) "Stop" (to stop the copy) or "Replace" (the target files with the source files.) If I choose "Keep Both" Finder is going to copy an additional 9GB to the target. If I choose "Stop" the process ends and if I hit "Restore" it is once again going to copy the 9GB to the target. This means that in 2 of the 3 cases I'm going to be copying 9GB rather than just the differential files - which might just be 10MB.

To me, changing "Don't Replace" with "Keep Both" is a SERIOUS design BLUNDER! Having developed software for > 30 years, I would LOVE to hear the rationale behind the change: how often do users actually want "Keep Both" over "Don't Replace?"

Thanks for reading this: I feel so much better after my rant .... :eek:
 

pcmxa

macrumors regular
Apr 9, 2011
170
8
ABQ
If you are syncing 9GB, why are you using Finder? Rsync would be much easier.

I would use Sync Two Folders, but that isn't the point is it? The point is what the OP wanted to do was perfectly easy to do (and many people did it) and the change they made to Finder drastically reduced its capabilities. Why not have skip AND keep both? why take away one type of functionality and replace it with another?
 

smueboy

macrumors 6502a
Oct 30, 2006
778
1
Oz
I agree - I regularly used to use the 'Don't replace' function. Ending up with 2 copies is not useful, and you don't always want to 'replace' if you know that a newer version exists in the target folder.

I hope someone comes up with a work-around for this, but i'd also like to know why Apple though that 'keep both' is a better option.
 

Macshroomer

macrumors 65816
Dec 6, 2009
1,301
730
I second this, there is simply no reason at all to ever use "Keep Both" when it adds a 2 to the file name, garbage. But in 10.6.8 on my other machine, I am only seeing "Stop" or "replace" options, not skip...

Now, imagine this, you have a 2TB drive that is going bad, files keep getting corrupted until when you install Lion (enter: Crap) and then the drive will only mount when you go to disk utility. Repair disk tells you that you have all kinds of problems including more corrupt files, yep, bad sectors on the drive going South. All the files are backed up, but you want to still try to pull the good files off of the drive that is going bad due to a catalog attached to it.

So you go through the motions of moving over all the files by hand in sets, because once you hit the bad file, ( error 36 ), it STOPS the whole effing process! So instead of being able to skip the bad file and keep going, you have to delete the bad file, then start over again. So when you no longer have the skip option in copying even good files that you may have already moved, you have to see what the last file was you added and go from there....

This is what I am dealing with right now, to the tune of 135 GB and with 20,530 FILES!!!

What a bunch of amateur hour, "I'm a loser, game-all-day" crap!
 
Last edited:

Cheule

macrumors member
Mar 28, 2009
40
10
Agreed, "Keep Both Files" is a dumb option. Perhaps it has something to do with the new file versioning in OS X Lion? Just a stab in the dark there.
 

tonywh

macrumors newbie
Jul 24, 2011
3
0
Totally agree with you. They added "keep both" function which is a improvement but why the hell they took away "don't replace" ? It doesn't make sense at all!
 

rorschach

macrumors 68020
Jul 27, 2003
2,269
1,841
"Keep Both" isn't entirely useless. For example, sometimes I have a folder of photos with not-so-unique names (usually numbers, like 001.JPG etc) and I move them into a folder where there are files with the same name but which obviously are different.

The removal of "Don't Replace" is ridiculous though. All four options should be there!
 

amazingworld

macrumors newbie
Oct 25, 2008
5
0
Completely agree

Whomever made that change to the Finder was only considering the "dumb" or "newbee" user and had no clue that this is a power-user function.

Even the fact that I can't option-click my way to "Don't Replace" functionality is a second insult.

Apple Computer: THAT was Dumb, Dumb, Dumb.
 

Praeliber

macrumors newbie
Nov 3, 2006
20
0
add my voice to this issue. I always praise the new os at each one of the X new release, but now I'm seriously considering going back to SL. Lion doesn't really bring anything but take back a bunch... Def not a fan of Lion after weeks of use...
 

iBug2

macrumors 601
Jun 12, 2005
4,530
851
"Keep Both" isn't entirely useless.

Keep both is a godsend for me. I have tons of photos which I move around and most of the time, they are named the same thing. And whenever I ever had to copy them into the same folder, I had to go to Automator, create some automation which renames thousands of files, so I could copy them into the same folder which contains files with the same names as them.

Now I don't need to any of that, keep both files renames everything automatically if a file with same name exists.

That doesn't excuse Apple from removing don't replace option though, but keep both files is a pretty useful tool for some people.
 

ralphbu

macrumors newbie
Sep 17, 2005
13
0
Solution

When you're looking at the box that says "keep both" press the option key. "keep both" then changes to "don't replace".
 
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