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What I'm looking for is something that seamlessly works within the windows GUI, not a command-line utility like robocopy. I do lots of small copy/pastes of various files and I'd like windows to just always overwrite if filesize differs, and if filesize is identical then it does nothing. Can it be done?

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If I were you, I would use a timestamp rather then filesize (unless you have an explicit reason to use the latter). – Breakthrough Jul 22 '11 at 14:56
@Breakthrough that makes sense, if a tool lets me do either I'll be happy. – CreeDorofl Jul 22 '11 at 15:02
@CreeDorofl I would modify your question to use timestamps - this is most likely why you got the downvotes. Don't rely on file sizes or file content to be consistent - ever. – Breakthrough Jul 22 '11 at 15:09
have you tried beyondcompare? It can be used to compare files and folders based on just about any criteria. – James Woolfenden Jul 22 '11 at 15:42
@James Woolfenden I haven't but it sounds a little different from what I'm hoping for. In a perfect world, there's no 3rd party program I need to run... I just drag and drop a bunch of files into a folder, and windows overwrites if the size/timestamp are different without nagging me... Or at worst, a dialogue that presents the usual overwrite options, plus one more: "overwrite only if timestamp/filesize differs". – CreeDorofl Jul 22 '11 at 15:47
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3 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

You can use TeraCopy if you want, then just set up the settings. Alternatively, it also asks you what to do when file name conflicts exist during a file copy operation (so you can address it on a case-by-case basis). Also, if a conflict is detected, you can choose what to do on a file-by-file basis, or for the entire transfer queue.

TeraCopy also integrates with the Windows shell to replace the default copy-and-paste operation with it's own interface.

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I remember trying Teracopy before, for some reason I nixed it but I'm willing to try it again if it lets me do this. Thanks for the suggestion. – CreeDorofl Jul 22 '11 at 15:04
@CreeDorofl it does, and you can also use a batchfile with it to do what you want. You can also do what you want on a case-by-case basis (it will ask you what to do for the entire batch or just that file when you try to replace files). IMHO, TeraCopy is the best explorer file management replacement tool. – Breakthrough Jul 22 '11 at 15:05
Is there any other good tool than TeraCopy? – avirk Jul 22 '11 at 15:13
I would recommend this or Copy Handler. – surfasb Jul 22 '11 at 21:40
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up vote 0 down vote

KDiff3

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How's the integration with windows explorer, pretty seamless? I'd like to just drag and drop and have windows not pop up any dialogues. – CreeDorofl Jul 22 '11 at 15:07
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up vote 0 down vote

rsync can also be used on windows, and it's a bit more flexible tool - it has command line options to compare timestamps only, but it also provides spme speedup in bandwidth constrained operations - like copying over a network or to a slow (writespeed) drive, since it's able to limit itself to transferring the parts that changed.

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