Copy+Overwrite without erasing current folder contents?

Hey all, I need a little help.

Something that has really annoyed me since switching from XP to OSX last year is that you can't seem to do a Copy+Overwrite without wiping out the contents of the folder you are overwriting.

Now that makes some logical sense, but it's still frustrating.

In XP if I copied, say the folder "test" from a CD onto the HDD that also had a folder named "test" and chose "Replace All" all the CD contents would be copied over and any matching files would indeed get replaced, but any contents of folders and subfolders would be left alone, and additional files on the CD would get *added* to the HDD folder.

That's probably enough explanation, but here's one example of what I'd like to be able to do in OSX:

Say I have:

/Volumes/CD/MyFolder
file1
file2
file3
file4

And:

/Volumes/HDD/MyFolder
file1
file2
file5

I want to copy /CD/MyFolder to /HDD/MyFolder by dragging the entire folder (I do NOT want to go into the folder and manually drag the *files*)

In OS X if I do this and choose "Overwrite" then /HDD/MyFolder becomes *exactly* what is in /CD/MyFolder, and I lose "file5"

In XP if I do the same operation "file1" and "file2" will get overwritten, and then "file3" and "file4" will be *added* to /HDD/MyFolder ... and "file5" will be untouched.

Is this possible in OS X in a way that is at least close to as simple as the solution in XP?

I basically have some missing data on the hdd that is in a bunch of subfolders, but the hdd content has lots of new content... i want to update the folders with what i have backed up on dvd without erasing the hdd contents.


Thanks!

emptyCup said:

OS-X doesn't do that for the very reason you needed half a page to describe what you want. Replacing is clear and predicable, without even knowing the contents of the folder. What you describe is not.

Click to expand...

Perhaps, but it's honestly easy enough to understand.

I took time to over-explain it only to ensure ever angle was covered and people who are not familiar with XP (or windows in general) could understand exactly what I was looking for.

A summary is not so complicated:

- Copy one folder on top of another without *erasing* any content in either.

Personally I find it a great annoyance and incredibly dumb that it's so hard to copy a folder onto another without losing content.

If there was even a synchornize option to do on two folders.

I'm really surprised other people don't find this annoying. It makes restoring large backups INCREDIBLY tedius and there is no reason to lose data during a COPY operation.

Even Unix/Linux has no problems doing this, iirc.

Thanks, I'll look for that utility!

Much appreciated.