OS X: how to merge folder contents, not replace

[mrklaw]

content-wise you may be right. but the o/s doesn't really know about the innards of files. all it knows is that two files have the same name, and you can't have two of the same name in the same directory on a unix system. the fact that unix directories are files proves the default behavior for os x in that two directories with the same name should overwrite each other by default as it doesn't matter what is contained in them, the fact that they have the same name causes the conflict.

I don't care about the system. Apple should and usually does care about the user. Folders are an abstraction of a container. I would expect - even never having used explorer or finder - that copying a folder over another one would merge the contents. If there is a clash at the file level inside the folder, then deal with the conflict. Simply replacing the entire contents underneath is frankly ridiculous.

Think about people with growing media collections - photos organised by event/subject; music organised by artist/album/track; TV shows by show/season/episode. All of those are common uses these days, taking up more and more storage, and likely to be spilling out across multiple external USB drives with similar and overlapping folder naming. This is exactly the space (media creation and consumption) that Apple is in and yet their basic finder doesn't deal with it properly.

annoyingly, moveaddict looks great. But I want 'copy addict'

 

[dejo]

FYI: OS X Lion will include the ability to Merge Folders in Finder!

 

[tintin007]

... at last

At Last ... if as you said LION is solving this issue it will FINALLY got LOGICAL behaviors.

Firstly, you must know that I don't fight against Mac ... I'm just reacting, as a PC user (supposed to be a lower race) to something I was able to do since 1994 and now that I'm passing to a "better world" as a new mac user, I must do A LOT of compromises, for a little enhancement as for the Magic Mouse and the trackpad that is Wonderfull.

The first week I've ever used a MAC, I've lost about 20 Gb of backup data by copying a simple JPG file that was 560kb ... what a nice welcome to your pretty world... THAT would never occur on a Windows platform, whatever option you select at the moving file prompt.

Dawm ... I love to work on my mac but and I'm really thinking that the "purist" mac USERS are the biggest problem in mac development because they're not able to distinguish religion and working tools so they are so blinded by their faith that they are accepting such ILLOGICAL behaviors and stand

 

[jowie]

When the Finder moved from OS 9 to OS X, it was a huge step backwards in terms of technical ability, and put it behind Windows. It's been paying catch-up ever since.

I love the Mac, but the Finder isn't professional software. I wish they'd produced something like Finder Pro, for all the people who work on computers during their daily lives, where it is essential to have folder merge.

I've not upgraded to Lion yet, but I've heard the folder merge only works on a copy and is a little non-standard... Anyone had any experience with it?

 

[lanceDev]

finder=crap. no ifs or buts.

I am infuriated by this quirk having just overwritten irretrievable plugins thanks to a momentary lapse in concentration and a click happy wacom pen. Finder is a terrible terrible inadequate app. Straddling the windows/osx/linux operating systems for years I cannot see how people with any experience of these operating systems can defend osx's finder in any way. It just is a stupid basic programme. windows/linux are miles ahead in this regard. So I have to upgrade to the latest os for a feature that has existed since the 1980's in other operating systems. Incredible.

 

[talmy]

I am infuriated by this quirk having just overwritten irretrievable plugins thanks to a momentary lapse in concentration and a click happy wacom pen. Finder is a terrible terrible inadequate app. Straddling the windows/osx/linux operating systems for years I cannot see how people with any experience of these operating systems can defend osx's finder in any way. It just is a stupid basic programme. windows/linux are miles ahead in this regard. So I have to upgrade to the latest os for a feature that has existed since the 1980's in other operating systems. Incredible.

There's only one defense I know of and that is in copying packages (applications and iPhoto, Aperture, and other databases) which if "merged" are apt to give broken results.

Lion's Finder does "fix" this, but as has been mentioned there have always been alternatives. None of these OS's core functions does a merge. It's always been an application feature.

 

[willpower101]

nuff said

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and I <3 my mac (licensed hack actually) much more than windows. (made that picture with vmware )

But this move/merge/replace issue has been fixed in most other major os in the last few years.

 

[hottyson]

I am infuriated by this quirk having just overwritten irretrievable plugins thanks to a momentary lapse in concentration and a click happy wacom pen. Finder is a terrible terrible inadequate app. Straddling the windows/osx/linux operating systems for years I cannot see how people with any experience of these operating systems can defend osx's finder in any way. It just is a stupid basic programme. windows/linux are miles ahead in this regard. So I have to upgrade to the latest os for a feature that has existed since the 1980's in other operating systems. Incredible.

My wife and I switched from Snow Leopard back to Windows XP because of the no merging in finder. We learned the hard way when I kept a backup of our photos by copying over in another folder. Many of them disappeared as I dumped the new ones over the others which always shared the common folder names like "friend pics" "family pics" "work pics" and "porn".

If the merge feature is truly in Lion, perhaps we will make the switch back!

 

[cawas]

My wife and I switched from Snow Leopard back to Windows XP because of the no merging in finder. We learned the hard way when I kept a backup of our photos by copying over in another folder. Many of them disappeared as I dumped the new ones over the others which always shared the common folder names like "friend pics" "family pics" "work pics" and "porn".

If the merge feature is truly in Lion, perhaps we will make the switch back!

You're using it wrong. Time Machine, dude. I know it's no excuse for flawed system design... But just use it on the right way and it's safer than Windows or Ubuntu (as far as my experience goes) even with those flaws (again, thanks to TM).

 

[talmy]

Time Machine, dude. I know it's no excuse for flawed system design...

I wouldn't want to rely on TimeMachine. The "bottom lines":

• Finder in Lion and Windows Explorer does merges.
• Earlier OS X Finder didn't
• No OS, not even Windows, does merge, it's just applications that may implement it.
• Even with Snow Leopard there are applications that will do a merge.

 

[blackranger3d]

I wouldn't want to rely on TimeMachine. The "bottom lines":

• Finder in Lion and Windows Explorer does merges.
• Earlier OS X Finder didn't
• No OS, not even Windows, does merge, it's just applications that may implement it.
• Even with Snow Leopard there are applications that will do a merge.

I could be wrong but Win7 did. Post #257 above shows how W7. It was a built in OS function not a separate application.

 

[willpower101]

I could be wrong but Win7 did. Post #257 above shows how W7. It was a built in OS function not a separate application.

yeah sorry about being unclear with the renaming of bar.txt to bar.text, I accidentally edited it when adding the filename comment.

I started out with
f1: foo.txt, bar.txt
f2: foo.txt

Dragging both from from f1 > f2, it auto-moves bar.txt or using a modifier key it copies it instead. It pops up the combine dialog for foo.txt since it already existed.



This is useful when you have say, 2 dumps of a camera sd card, one is newer and the other is older, but you can't remember which is which and when you took them.

You just drag one folder into the other and tell it to move and replace. It replaces all the duplicate pictures and moves all the non-duplicates - Resulting in a single paired down folder.

 

[talmy]

I could be wrong but Win7 did. Post #257 above shows how W7. It was a built in OS function not a separate application.

That's a Windows Explorer feature, not a Windows OS feature. Windows Explorer has had that feature for many years (possibly "always"). Windows Explorer, like Mac OS X Finder, is a separate application. In the OS you can only copy individual files, there is no function to copy folders.

 

[willpower101]

That's a Windows Explorer feature, not a Windows OS feature. Windows Explorer has had that feature for many years (possibly "always"). Windows Explorer, like Mac OS X Finder, is a separate application. In the OS you can only copy individual files, there is no function to copy folders.

Explorer hasn't been a separate part of the operating system since before windows 95. That's like driving is a feature of an engine and not of a car. The entire shell / gui that you use is the "Windows Explorer". Just try opening up the task manager and killing the process Explorer.exe. It may be a separate process, but it's not an independent file manager or application.

The ability to copy both files and folders is a built in feature of the operating system. This works the same whether you are in browsing the drive from the "windows shell" or using the command line. OsX has also always included the ability to recursively copy & replace or move & replace in the command prompt as well, just not in the gui.

Regardless, I'm just thankful this glaring oversight is solved in Lion.

 

[talmy]

The ability to copy both files and folders is a built in feature of the operating system. This works the same whether you are in browsing the drive from the "windows shell" or using the command line. OsX has also always included the ability to recursively copy & replace or move & replace in the command prompt as well, just not in the gui.

The reason I say it isn't built into the OS: write a program for Windows. There is no system call to copy folders. And you can't call Windows Explorer to do it. The only reference I could find was that Visual Basic provides a library routine that will do it. When you are using the OS X command line you are running programs that can copy as well (and you can do the merging with a couple of different programs). However it is still the case that there are no system calls that copy folders.

 

[iMusings]

That's a Windows Explorer feature, not a Windows OS feature. Windows Explorer has had that feature for many years (possibly "always"). Windows Explorer, like Mac OS X Finder, is a separate application. In the OS you can only copy individual files, there is no function to copy folders.

Pedantics much?

By the same token perhaps I can say that there is nothing in the *NIX kernel that prevent folder merges. It is the brain dead people in Apple who wrote Finder that caused it.

End point: Apple developers are anti-user. Happy?

 

[talmy]

Dead issue. The thread started 5 years ago when it was relevant. Finder does merges now.