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If the title didn't make much sense then, let me provide more details. My problem is that there are some identical files on both drives already, but they reside in different directories. Let me show you an example:

Here are two identical files that don't have the same directory path, C: being the drive from which the folder structure should be duplicated:

C:\Users\Public\photo25.jpg
E:\Users\Public\New folder\photo25.jpg

Suggesting me to use robocopy with /MIR switch won't do the trick because, it won't assume that those two files I just mentioned are identical since they lie under different folders. So, to repeat my question, how can I first move files on the backup drive that are identical to files on the main drive to match their folder structure of the main drive and only then copy files that only exist on the main drive onto the backup drive and also get a report on which folders on the backup drive have been renamed/deleted in order to match the folder structure of the main drive?

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  • What is your cause for concern to want this feature?
    – mtone
    Sep 2, 2018 at 12:22

2 Answers 2

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There is no utility I know of that will do that.

I suggest to just let the disks resync. The files that are not in their place will be deleted, and then will be copied to their right place. Using robocopy /MIR will take more time then the process you are describing, but will work. You may spend more time than that, and probably in vain, trying to make it work your way.

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If free disk space on the destination is a concern (if the moved files are large), perhaps you could run robocopy /purge first to delete moved files, then robocopy /mir to copy over, at the expense of increased total scan time.

Otherwise, I know FreeFileSync has a feature to detect moved files by keeping a database between backups, but I'm not sure about reports. https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=synchronization-settings

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  • FreeFileSync is not free anymore.
    – harrymc
    Sep 3, 2018 at 9:43

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