How could one make a folder / file compare?

[Biff]

How could one make a folder / file compare? E.g. a special folder in an offline index with a folder on a hard drive (or the online index accordingly)?

[therube]

Maybe dupe-from: (or other dupe: related &/or unique:, distinct:) functions, &/or file-list:.


Find Unique Files

[Biff]

Okay, so it's not really known for sure.

Many thanks thanks for the links!

[Herkules97]

What is a "special folder"?

[Biff]

Some folder you want to compare, I think.

[Herkules97]

Some folder you want to compare, I think.

Do you mean you have 2 instances where you want to compare folders' files across them?
You could export the folders(ctrl+s) as .efu and add those exports to a third instance to not modify the existing 2.
It's under Options - Indexes - File Lists.

Then use the commands in reply 1, such as namedupe: or dupe:name.
I write the first way, but I mostly see it written the second way.
Say
namedupe: sizedupe: lengthdupe:
or
dupe:name,size,length

[Biff]

Many thanks!

Do you mean you have 2 instances where you want to compare folders' files across them?

For example a single folder I:/folder-x on the online hard drive, just running, the real folder on the drive. And you want to compare that folder with for example folder-x in the backup on another drive, offline, its index stored in Everything.

So saving the file list of folder-x as a usual file list. Then....I do what? I somehow enter the path to folder-x on the offline drive and enter something like dupe:name,size,length? How had I to do that exactly.

[Herkules97]

So saving the file list of folder-x as a usual file list. Then....I do what? I somehow enter the path to folder-x on the offline drive and enter something like dupe:name,size,length? How had I to do that exactly.

Export the 2 folders as efu, then add them as file lists from the options path I wrote.
This will make both of those folders the only thing that instance has, inputting their paths are only necessary if you want to use dupe-from:
I input their paths regardless because I want them in search history, but that's up to you.

If you have 2 instances already, I imagine you know how to make instances separate. Idk, maybe there are ways to have multiple instances without knowing, if say 1.4x and 1.5x are treated separate? Maybe even 1.5a and 1.5b. I don't use the service method of running EBV, all of mine run with the -instance command in shortcuts. All I know of the service method are what others say about it and I forget.

The search also depends on your case, if you want to search C:\A1 and B:\D6 using the dupes commands in my reply it'd be
C:\A1|B:\D6 dupe:name,size,length

There are other ways of adding exports I believe, but to me that adds unnecessary complication like the filelist: command or if it's file-list:.
I guess it's useful for temporary additions, if you want to use the same instance?

The dupe command will sort by either the first or last I presume, I don't use the comma version so Idk how it behaves. If you always want to sort by the same thing you can make that explicit such as sort:name-ascending. I cba to make small tests for everything, so I will not bother finding out how comma version sorts...Unless I'm bored and test it anyway.
C:\A1|B:\D6 dupe:name,size,length sort:name-ascending

[Biff]

Ah, sorry for understanding nothing. No idea what I would have to do. Sorry again.

[Herkules97]

Ah, sorry for understanding nothing. No idea what I would have to do. Sorry again.

I see, well I know one solution could be to use lots of pictures but I cba to do that.

Either someone else can help or you'll have to use the program more to get familiar on your own.

[Biff]

OK, thank you very much anyway. And sorry again for my bad understanding.

[Native2904]

Hi, why not using WinMerge?
It's easy to use and you can make a custom command with-it in your Context menu ..

[Biff]

Thank you very much for the link.

It can compare offline volumes / drives (with online volumes / drives)?

[Herkules97]

online=files and folders you can currently access with your system

Doubt it, it's a tool for comparing contents it seems. I think it's akin to Notepad++'s Compare plugin but also does folders somehow. I may have used it in 2015 or if that was the NP++ plugin..I only did file contents and the files did need to be online as it has to read them.

Index isn't mentioned once in that starting page.

I doubt he read the thread before replying

https://winmerge.org/screenshots/?lang=en
Looking at this, folder compare uses online comparison. Looks similar to DigitalVolcano's Duplicate Cleaner.

Both of those might use file contents or/and hashes to compare. I know EBV can at least do hashes and that's probably fine for most use cases..Even more fine if you use the size and such in the dupe: command to narrow down similarities. Plus the hashes are indexed so you don't have to re-read them for any future comparisons.

Maybe DV's also does that but I found it wasn't transparent enough when it has them indexed and when it's re-reading the files. It might also be buggy, IIRC I found files that were counted as the same but were definitely not. I'm probably never going to use DV's again, so I may never refresh my memory on it. It may have been that it grouped 2 "duplicate" files together that had different sizes and hashes. Nowadays I use this program and I don't even bother with hashes..Instead relying on more manual staring and scrolling with usually size, name, date created and date modified if it's files. Could be worthwhile to use one of the hashes, I may have tried it and found it was too heavy..I don't remember well enough. One could also take it one step at a time with a separate instance that only monitors select folders and you have to add more folders when you want to compare them. It could even be paused and only manually rescanned when you want up-to-date info. Instead of doing it in an NTFS instance that constantly reads new files and has to index hashes for them. Might not matter for non-OS devices, but OS files can be modified over and over in a day and each different state will be re-indexed with any hash properties you have toggled.

One benefit of DV's is the lazy method of just setting one folder to protected so you only ever delete the other folder's files. But such laziness could come at the cost of deleting unique files. Or not, it's possible I made mistakes on my end and it wasn't DV's fault.

[Biff]

Thank you for the link. Yes, I use WinMerge sometimes but never had encountered an offline compare option. But who knows. Yes, similar to the Notepad++ compare, but also with folders.

Volcano's Duplicate Cleaner looks very good, but runs extremely slow with me (compared to ALLdup or FreeFileSync, etc.), or it just never gets to the end, so it actually is not usable here. Actually I wanted to use it to find duplicate (same content) music folders, but in that mode it shows not duplicate folders as duplicate folders according to one's settings or so.

That protection option is available in AllDup as well. It seems to run quite reliable.

[Native2904]

2Biff
Sorry, I thought that you have your online folder mounted… in this case WinMerge should do the job.

[Biff]

No no, no reasons for sorry, it is a good program, thank you anyway.