Find the missing files

pledgeX

I'm looking for some software that will help me spot files that I've not backed up.

Every few months I manually copy photos taken on my phone onto my computer as a backup. The problem I have is that I'm not convinced I've copied everything. I know there's definitely some videos that aren't on my computer for example.

The problem is that it's not a like-for-like mapping. On my phone, everything is in a single folder, whereas on my computer it's I've got a folder per year, then inside that a folder for each month, THEN the individual files, so I can't just highlight two folders and compare them.

Any ideas?

that

Now no longer on the mobile i have a better understanding.
First you need to get a file listing from your phone, hopefully names only, then a listing from all your subdirectories of file names only, toy past both lists into excel and excel has a Vertical Compare function (think it it not the horizontal one?) which highlights in each column what is not in the other column

Karens directory printer is the most obvious, as possibly the easiest software. but once you get used to it Nirsoft's SearchMyFiles is usually superior. You may need to take out some of the paths with a text editor beforehand

Edit: if you have load of directories with files, and one directory from your mobile with files (or very separate directory paths) - as it makes your viewing easier. IF there are no duplicate files in any of the two separate sections (phone or the pc), then Nirsoft's SearchMyFiles has a non duplicate file finder and will search for the non duplicates from wither side.

Nirsoft's SearchMyFiles is free too

debitcardmayhem

Just back up the top level directory e.g. Photos ... oh and Videos. You don't say how you copy them from the phone to the PC, also which PC OS and Phone you use. Since there is one folder on the phone then there should be one folder on the PC , but of course it is probably down to you options on the PC and how you view them

pledgeX

It's a Windows 10 machine and android phones. Currently backing up by using a usb cable manually dragging and dropping the files.

The reason I don't want just a single folder on my pc is that having a single folder with 50k files in makes navigating and viewing files unmanageable.

dipsomaniac

I have a single folder called 'memories' within that is 2 X folders 'photos' & 'videos' each folder is then broken down into years. I don't feel the need to break down into months as each photo/video is in date order (original file name) within the year folders.

I have Google photos on my phone and Google backup & sync on pc pointing to memories folder. I connect phone to pc once a month to cut photos from phone memory to pc. Can still see all photos on phone via Google photos.

If you still have all photos on phone I would start again and copy all to pc

that

SearchMyFiles is the answer for comparing files for: exact same size - Duplicates search , or exact same name - Duplicate names search, or unique item in one location only - Non-Duplicates search, and there is also a Standard Search too

It will transverse folders and you can also add span multiple folders and drives. It can do a whole load of other stuff too

giraffe69

Doesn't Google photos sort all this without any intervention including making sure all photos are backed up to computer?

dipsomaniac

giraffe69 wrote: »

Doesn't Google photos sort all this without any intervention including making sure all photos are backed up to computer?

You can access photos on pc but google photos backs up to Google servers. You also need a local backup.