Win10 file-copying question.

Si_Clist

I have about 15GB of music files in a folder on my laptop, and last year I copied the whole works onto a USB stick.  Since then, I've added maybe 50 or so more files to the laptop folder, and I'd like to bring the folder on the USB stick up to date.

Do I have to delete the existing folder on the USB stick then copy all of the current folder across from the laptop, or is there a way of just adding the files that aren't already on the USB stick - given that manually checking one folder against the other to see which I actually need to add would be a major PITA?

Neil_Jones

No.

Just open the folder you want to copy from, select them all, do a "Copy" (CTRL+C).

The go to the folder you want to back up to, right-click paste and you should eventually see a message along the lines of "this folder contains files with the same name.  Do you wish to replace these files".  If you say no to this, Windows will skip existing files and and only copy what is "new" to it.

Note that Windows filenames are not case sensitive, so music.mp3, MUSIC.mp3, MuSiC and Music.mp3 are all seen as the same file.  On other operating systems (primarily but not exclusively Linux based) the above examples would be four different files as they are case sensitive.  Windows (and DOS for that matter) is not and never has been.

BooJewels

I'm actually just doing this myself as I'm re-ripping all my music at a higher bit-rate - so every few days, I add a few more albums to the USB stick I use in my music player. 

You certainly don't need to manually check it, there are several ways to sync the two directories.  By accident, I found that Windows Media Player itself will sync it automatically if you have an external drive attached when it's open. I just rip a few CDs, pop the USB stick in and it does it automatically.  If you're using different software to rip the CDs, that may offer the option too.

There are also pieces of software that will do it with any files - what I was using before I found Media Player would do it, was a program that was actually recommended here for me called FreeFileSync - I use that daily to mirror my hard drives on different computers. 

cx6

One slight problem you may meet is if there is not much room on the USB stick then attempting to copy the lot over again may give you a 'not enough room on disk' error, as windows copy is not intelligent enough to realise some files won't be copied as they are already there

If this happens you will have to delete and then recopy everything, or use a syncing program such as allway sync

Sicard

As above or use a duplicate file finder (eg: free on Glary Utilities).

Si_Clist

Thank you folks.  That's me sorted once again thanks to this sub-forum

Belenus

cx6 said:

One slight problem you may meet is if there is not much room on the USB stick then attempting to copy the lot over again may give you a 'not enough room on disk' error, as windows copy is not intelligent enough to realise some files won't be copied as they are already there

If this happens you will have to delete and then recopy everything, or use a syncing program such as allway sync

Not necessarily.

You can sort the files in the origin (laptop) and target (USB stick) folders by Date Modified and only select those from the origin folder with a later date than the most recent file in the target folder.

It is usually easier to do what Neil Jones suggests above by selecting All Files and letting Windows warn of duplicate files but, if the USB stick is more than half full, then you may get a not enough space message and have to select the newer files only.

Belenus

Si_Clist said:

I have about 15GB of music files in a folder on my laptop, and last year I copied the whole works onto a USB stick.  Since then, I've added maybe 50 or so more files to the laptop folder, and I'd like to bring the folder on the USB stick up to date.

Do I have to delete the existing folder on the USB stick then copy all of the current folder across from the laptop, or is there a way of just adding the files that aren't already on the USB stick - given that manually checking one folder against the other to see which I actually need to add would be a major PITA?

If that USB stick is your only backup copy, I suggest that you buy another one or two USB sticks so that you have multiple backup copies.

USB sticks are more prone to sudden failure than hard drives.

USB sticks are fairly inexpensive. Buy a recognised brand from a reputable source and not a cheap unbranded stick as they are often fake and have far less capacity than claimed. 

Username03725

Answered, but as ever there's more than one way to skin a cat and if this is to be regular thing copying new files to the existing folder there are a couple of options. Both take a bit of time to set up properly but once done every subsequent copy session is trivial.

1) Windows 10 includes a utility called Robocopy; documentation is readily available but the trick is to create a desktop file in Notepad with a .bat extension so Windows will run it on a double-click, and in the file enter the relevant Robocopy commands to copy from source to target with the correct switches (arguments) so that only new files are copied. It's a very efficient utility that can do a huge amount in terms of synching folders etc.

2) Download an app called WinMerge and again find the documentation to create a project within that will merge two (or more) folders and synch them appropriately and highlight folders that contain differences. This is very useful where e.g. you have a folder with all your photos organised and wish to copy new pics to a local backup and also a networked (NAS) drive backup location. It can do a lot more, but this is a good tool.

Both of these solutions involve doing the leg work up front but once that's done any time you need to run a copy / synch, it's trivial.

googler

Another way to skin the cat;

Note the copy date of the original copy

Go to the source folder, and select only those sub-folders modified since that date.

Copy them all, and paste into the target folder, clicking Accept on each prompt to replace an existing  folder.

This will add the new ones, and replace only those you have modified in the interim 

cx6

Poor old cat - another way is to open a command prompt, and type xcopy /?

This will show you the arguments to xcopy - maybe /M ?

Cat has 3 lives left...