Overwriting a file but not knowing which is more recent?

[qwimjim]

When you copy a file to a folder in windows, and it already exists, a little dialog pops up and tells you the size of each, and when each was last modified so you decide whether to overwrite or not. How do I get this in OSX? Now when I copy a file it just asks me if I want to overwrite, but I have no details about either file.

Thanks

 

[GGJstudios]

If you read the message, it tells you which is older:

​

 

[qwimjim]

If you read the message, it tells you which is older:

View attachment 268010
View attachment 268011​

But what about file size info?

 

[GGJstudios]

But what about file size info?

It won't show that during a copy/move operation. You'd have to abort the copy or move and manually check them for sizes, but it does let you know which is most recent, which addresses your original question.

 

[qwimjim]

That's bizarre, it's very very handy in windows, amazing that Mac users have never demanded it.

Here's another question, how do I delete a file type? Say I have a folder with a bunch of files and I want to move/copy/delete them, how would I do this?

In Dos it's del *.txt for instance, but in terminal it's rm -f <then what?>

 

[GGJstudios]

That's bizarre, it's very very handy in windows, amazing that Mac users have never demanded it.

Here's another question, how do I delete a file type? Say I have a folder with a bunch of files and I want to move/copy/delete them, how would I do this?

In Dos it's del *.txt for instance, but in terminal it's rm -f <then what?>

You don't need Terminal for that. Simply sort the contents of the folder by clicking the "Kind" column header, select the range of files that have the extension you want, then move/copy/delete them.

 

[qwimjim]

You don't need Terminal for that. Simply sort the contents of the folder by clicking the "Kind" column header, select the range of files that have the extension you want, then move/copy/delete them.

Wow do I ever feel dumb, staring me right in the face FWIW, I figured it out in terminal, for any windows users out there, terminal is case sensitive so rm -f *.TXT is what I need to do in this particular instance.

 

[GGJstudios]

Wow do I ever feel dumb, staring me right in the face FWIW, I figured it out in terminal, for any windows users out there, terminal is case sensitive so rm -f *.TXT is what I need to do in this particular instance.

Except using Finder will group all .txt and .TXT files together, regardless of case, whereas you'd have to enter two Terminal commands to accomplish the same thing. That being said, some prefer using Terminal and some prefer Finder, regardless of the steps involved.

 

[qwimjim]

And what's the equivalent of a .bat file in osx? For instance if I want to create a script or something that would automatically copy a file from A to B to back it up. In windows it would go

c:
cd program files
cd blahblah
copy database.xls to d:\backup\


something simple so i don't have to always go hunt for it

 

[GGJstudios]

How do I create terminal scripts?