Too much overwrite in copy to memory stick

[kenppy]

I have a folder and some sub-folders with some fifty files. This is my work stuff which I copy to a memory stick. This is now about 8Mb and takes about two minutes.

When I copy this to the stick it always overwrote by default which I accepted, the time is now becoming a pain.

I notice that if I have made no changes it still says that some files have changed and overwrites. This is clearly not true. With a new empty stick I drag the working directory over and it copies, when this is done and without doing anything else to the files I drag it over again and it says that some files have been changed and starts overwriting everything.

How do I get this to recognize changed files?

thanks

 

[Fishrrman]

Get a larger-capacity memory stick!

 

[Weaselboy]

How do I get this to recognize changed files?

I think instead of trying to do this with drag and drop in Finder, you would be better off using a utility to do this for you. OS X has a command line utility built in called rsync that is exactly for this type of thing. If you don't want to fuss with the command line (Terminal), there are some rsync GUI utilities to make it easier. Here is one example.

 

[kenppy]

I think instead of trying to do this with drag and drop in Finder, you would be better off using a utility to do this for you. OS X has a command line utility built in called rsync that is exactly for this type of thing. If you don't want to fuss with the command line (Terminal), there are some rsync GUI utilities to make it easier. Here is one example.

Thanks, I'll try that.
But I'd also like to understand why an identical file is not recognised as such.

 

[Flynnstone]

The file contents may be identical. But the date of the file may have changed if has be touched.

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks, I'll try that.
But I'd also like to understand why an identical file is not recognised as such.

If I understand what you are doing, you are just doing a drag and drop of the files in Finder yes? My point is, if that is what you are doing, Finder does not know what is changed and what is not... it just copies everything over again. rsync can be setup to only copy over changed files like you want.