Identifying Moved Files

[anjan_oleti]

Hi! I am a newbie... and could not find a feature which would help me save a lot of time in synchronizing...

On comparing different folders... there may be some files which are same (based on size and time stamp), but contained in different sub-folders... BC identifies them as two SEPARATE ORPHANS, instead of MOVED FILES.

The result...

Two operations are required in MIRRORING:
1. Delete file in old location
2. Copy same file to new location
Instead of:
Move the file from old to new location within the same folder
This will save a lot of time... more so, if the files are large!

And in case of MERGING, it will create DUPLICATE of the same file!

Also, Pl let me know if I am overlooking a feature already existing :)

[Ernie]

Take a look at the Custom Sync ( Action -> Synchronize Folders -> Custom Sync ) to see if that will do what you want, particularly the Mirror Left to Right option.

[anjan_oleti]

Thanks for your response...
Actually, I am aware of that option, but my problem isn't that!

Let me illustrate...
Suppose, "Drive D:" (Left) and "Drive F:" (Right) are compared..
There is a file say, "XYZ.exe" is in "D:\SubFolder1\SubFolder2\"
And the same file is in "F:\Subfolder5\"

[Probable reason: after a backup from D: to F:, XYZ.exe was moved to a new location in D: during work... now, it is to be backed up again to F:]

On comparing, there would be two <font color="blue"> ORPHANS </font> shown as follows:

Left Panel
D:\
- SubFolder1\
- - SubFolder2\
<font color="blue"> - - - XYZ.exe </font>

Right Panel
F:\
- SubFolder5\
<font color="blue"> - - XYZ.exe </font>

It is not recognised as the same file in a different location in the tree (moved elsewhere within Drive D:)

So, on syncing... the operations would be
1. Delete F:\Subfolder5\XYZ.exe
2. Copy D:\SubFolder1\SubFolder2\XYZ.exe
to F:\SubFolder1\SubFolder2\XYZ.exe

Instead of
1. MOVE F:\Subfolder5\XYZ.exe
to F:\SubFolder1\SubFolder2\XYZ.exe

This takes up a lot of time if XYZ.exe is huge :(

Hope you got it now! :)

[Ernie]

Yes, your clarification helped.

I don't believe BC2 is currently capable of doing the type of operation you want to perform. It will see two distinct orphans.

Maybe someone else can confirm this, or at least provide further information.

[Chris]

Yes, detecting moved files isn't supported in BC2. It is another feature on our wish list for a future release.

Oh! :cool:
Thanks for the update!

If implementing a feature to automatically identify moved files is difficult (or will take some time) perhaps you could implement a feature to let us drag and drop files to new locations. That way if we see BC has found a pair of orphan files, we could easily manually move one to the same directory as the other and then BC would know they are the same.

[Chris]

Jeff,

Thanks for the suggestion. We're considering this as a possibility for a future version of Beyond Compare.

[anjan_oleti]

When can we expect this feature?
It would be very useful to me since I need to keep changing folder names quite often.
Thanks

[Chris]

Detecting moved files is still on our wish list, but I don't know when it will be available in Beyond Compare.