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How to replace only new files when copying??

G

Gloor

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Hi, I have a problem that I'm sure has a simple solution.
I often do manual backups on my external drive (simply because I want to choose what to back up) as well as time machine on a second internal drive.
Well, time machine works fine so I will not talk about that.

Problem:

When I copy a folder to my external harddrive and then 2 weeks later I take the same folder and want to copy it again (with some new files in the folder) it gives me a message saying that the folder exist and if I want to replace or stop. Well, the thing is that I only want to replace files, that are newer or new so I don't want to replace everything as it takes ages because it starts from the scratch so I was wondering if there is a modification I could do in Leopard to change the way the copy works.

Anyone knows?
 
Gloor said:
Hi, I have a problem that I'm sure has a simple solution.
I often do manual backups on my external drive (simply because I want to choose what to back up) as well as time machine on a second internal drive.
Well, time machine works fine so I will not talk about that.

Problem:

When I copy a folder to my external harddrive and then 2 weeks later I take the same folder and want to copy it again (with some new files in the folder) it gives me a message saying that the folder exist and if I want to replace or stop. Well, the thing is that I only want to replace files, that are newer or new so I don't want to replace everything as it takes ages because it starts from the scratch so I was wondering if there is a modification I could do in Leopard to change the way the copy works.

Anyone knows?
Click to expand...

Give this little application a try.


http://scriptbuilders.net/files/mergefolders1.0.1.html
 
Aloha Gloor,

All you need do is open the folder you want to copy and select the contents, then copy to the destination folder. If you copy the contents of the folder, you will be presented with a window asking for your desired action - overwrite, ignore, or cancel. I do this all the time. If you copy the folder, it will be replaced, but if you copy the contents, you can tell the OS what you wish to do. The really cool thing is that, unlike Windows, you can apply that same action to all duplicate files.

HawaiiMacAddict
 

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Copy changed files only

I sort the 'from' folder from new to old and then drag only the top files to the 'to' folder. It's basic but effective.
 
What OS version do you have? I think Lion and beyond have a merge folders ability which might do exactly what you want. Since I haven't upgraded to Lion, I can't tell you how it's done.
 
HawaiiMacAddict said:
Aloha Gloor,

All you need do is ....

HawaiiMacAddict
Click to expand...

Sorry but this does not work for me. I need to make a copy of a folder that contains dozens of sub-folders and hundreds of files. It is almost 900GB and takes me 3 hours to copy from my RAID to an external HD that has an older copy already on it. I only want any new or changed files copied only. But my only option (OSX 10.9.2) is to replace or quit. This stinks. I will kick off the copy and go to bed. sigh...
 
You can use Carbon Copy Cloner to do this...and I think the older, shareware version 3.4.7 would probably work. Once you have the task set up you can schedule automatic backups or do it manually with a couple of clicks.
 
patspahr9 said:
Sorry but this does not work for me. I need to make a copy of a folder that contains dozens of sub-folders and hundreds of files. It is almost 900GB and takes me 3 hours to copy from my RAID to an external HD that has an older copy already on it. I only want any new or changed files copied only. But my only option (OSX 10.9.2) is to replace or quit. This stinks. I will kick off the copy and go to bed. sigh...
Click to expand...

If you are not opposed to using the command line, the rsync program would do what you want.
 
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