Respect the Root of the Folder

[amerifax]

Most often, I need to research a drive for duplicates. When I find duplication have to be careful not to remove the duplicate from the most complete folder. because the most complete folder is most likely going to be able to use the content to execute a function. if the other folder equals, then delete one of them. But if they are not equal. I need to evaluate the two folders.

due to the quantity of files. I'm talking about. It would be best to just run it automatically. , and this is the scenario:

Folder A = Folder B
Delete all = files from the same folder.

Simple enough, as it appears, but it's not.

I have to take into consideration the tree the folder resides on. I must keep one tree as complete as possible. I need BeyondCompare to have the capability of looking at a tree, Folder A, finding duplication's that occur in a different tree, Folder B, and delete the duplication's.

Mostly my searches are done by the entire drive. so beyond compare, has to find duplication's in a folder with the ability to locate the most complete tree, folder all way back to the root of that folder.

Did I make myself clear. . If you'll understanding what I'm trying to tell you you're doing better than I am.

Bob

[Aaron]

Hello,

Unfortunately, BC3 is not specifically designed as a duplicate file finder. We have 4 different Folder View modes: 3 of these modes always consider the folder structure to be important. That would mean the base folders can be set to a specific drive or subfolder, but any folders below that (on the left and right of the comparison) must have the same folder structure in order for files to be aligned and compared. From your scenario, it sounds like you would like to scan a single drive, and find if a folder has been duplicated at multiple points on that drive? BC3 cannot perform this scan, but could compare the two folders after they were found, but setting them as the base folders, which would align and compare the relative contents.

Given Folder A and Folder B, the duplicates folders would need to be at the same relative level in order to be aligned and compared. FolderA\Dup and FolderB\Dup. If one Dup is lower, the base folders would need to be:
FolderA\NewSub\ <-> FolderB\

Where the contents were:
FolderA\NewSub\SubFolder\Duplicate
FolderB\SubFolder\Duplicate

So that
SubFolder\Duplicate aligns on both sides.

The 4th Folder View mode is Ignore Folder Structure. This mode removes all subfolders, and aligns all files by filename only. This assumes there are no duplicate filenames on the same side of the comparison, which when scanning an entire drive is unlikely. This is because we align by filename first, then run the comparison; if there are two different pairs of the same filename, BC3 must pick one before the compare can be run, so we do not know if we picked the pair you would expect.

Does this help explain how BC3 loads a Folder Compare, and aligns content for comparison by Folder Structure and File Name first? Do you think on of these modes might meet your needs? Please let us know if you have any questions.