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Thread: multiple folder trees with mostly identical files - find the changed files

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    multiple folder trees with mostly identical files - find the changed files

    I have a folder with around 160,000 files. Only a handful of those files change per day but the users cannot tell me which files they have made changes to over the past few days. I have restored multiple backups of said folder from different days. All files that have changed between backups need to be identified so we can see if there is missing data.
    Using the least administrative effort, how can I create another directory tree with just the files that have changed?
    If all else fails, I'm sure I can do something with robocopy but I think I'll only end up with a list of those files.
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    ɯʎɔɐɹsɐʌʍ mycarsavw's Avatar
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    Re: multiple folder trees with mostly identical files - find the changed files

    I successfully used Duplicate File Finder to do something similar recently between an external HDD, a server and a PC.

    You set the variables and then leave it to do its thing until you're presented with a list of duplicate files.

    I moved the duplicates to a new folder and assumed those that were left were unique and/or had changed between my backup sets.
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    Re: multiple folder trees with mostly identical files - find the changed files

    use robocopy but preserve directory structure ?
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    Re: multiple folder trees with mostly identical files - find the changed files

    Isn't this what the "last modified" timestamp was designed for?

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    Re: multiple folder trees with mostly identical files - find the changed files

    Quote Originally Posted by mycarsavw View Post
    I successfully used Duplicate File Finder to do something similar recently between an external HDD, a server and a PC.

    You set the variables and then leave it to do its thing until you're presented with a list of duplicate files.

    I moved the duplicates to a new folder and assumed those that were left were unique and/or had changed between my backup sets.
    Unfortunately, they seem to have about 3 copies of everything in different folders so any list of dupes is going to be unmanagably large.
    Quote Originally Posted by Moby-Dick View Post
    use robocopy but preserve directory structure ?
    I've used Robocopy to produce a list so far. I'm now going to play with the switches some more.
    It looks like ~2500 files are either missing or changed. Restoring the missing files is easy with robocopy.
    robocopy source destination /e /xc /xn /xo /xx /NDL /XD DFSRPrivate /XF thumbs.db
    I'm going to restore the missing files first and then use source destination /e /xx /NDL /XD DFSRPrivate /XF thumbs.db
    to list the changed files. I suspect here will be a manageable number of files after that.
    Quote Originally Posted by Splash View Post
    Isn't this what the "last modified" timestamp was designed for?
    Unfortunately that doesn't include files missing.

    For anyone else looking to achieve the same end, don't worry about the /XD DFSRprivate and /XF thumbs.db
    The first excluded a system directory used for replication and /XF excludes the windows thumbnails databases for any pictures. These files are generated automatically when you open a folder with pictures/videos etc in them and they can be deleted harmlessly.
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