Synchronizing two folders - I'm confused

[Daniel75]

Hi,

Scenario - I have two folders One with "proper" itunes library. Its big and its growing. Second folder is "backup" of it. How do I copy files from my "master" folder in a way that I'm copying only files which are not present in my backup without selecting individual files??

Gosh - I hope that its clear

Thanks!

Dan

 

[angelwatt]

One mostly easy way is rsync. It involves the command line, but once you know the syntax it's very helpful.

For the syntax, open up Terminal and type in,

man rsync

This will bring up a manual page for the command and show you the arguments that can be used.

A rsync GUI-based app (I've never tried it). You can also try out an Automator script like this one.

Example:

rsync -av --progress path/to/source/folder path/to/destination

I recommend the above arguments.

 

[asherrd]

A simple method I use a lot is this. Inefficient but easy.

1. select all files in the folder
2. copy and paste (or drag) all the files into your backup folder
3. when it asks if you want to replace a file that already exists click "no" and check the box that says "apply to all"

If your original folder had 20gb in it, the file transfer window will still say it is transfering 20gb but it will skip over the files you already have in your backup. So if you have a 5gb chunk of songs in your backup folder already all starting with the letter z, the transfer will go from 15 to 20gb instantly. Not exactly like that, but I hope you get the point.

 

[d_saum]

A simple method I use a lot is this. Inefficient but easy.

1. select all files in the folder
2. copy and paste (or drag) all the files into your backup folder
3. when it asks if you want to replace a file that already exists click "no" and check the box that says "apply to all"

If your original folder had 20gb in it, the file transfer window will still say it is transfering 20gb but it will skip over the files you already have in your backup. So if you have a 5gb chunk of songs in your backup folder already all starting with the letter z, the transfer will go from 15 to 20gb instantly. Not exactly like that, but I hope you get the point.

Yes but... won't that skip over existing folders even if there are changes within the folder? ie: I had a backup folder for "seether" and recently downloaded their latest song. So now my primary seether folder has the new song. Wont the "copy" see a seether folder and not overwrite it? My music library is quite large... so I wouldnt want to have to watch for every folder and try to remember what I've updated.

I recently purchased Tune Ranger for $12.00... unfortunately I cant remember where I got it from. I want to say buy.com, but its showing $28.00 there now.

To be honest, I'm really surprised that Apple doesn't have a built in method for syncing multiple iTunes libraries!!!