Saving Photos to External HDD without making duplicates

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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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Sorry if this isn't the right place Mods, I didn't know where to place this. I'm preparing to reformat and I'll be saving my photos to a 1 TB external HDD. How do I go about not saving duplicate pics I already have saved to the HDD since I didn't clear them out on my last reformat? We're talking 10,000 + photos so I can't view them individually. I know there is software to do this but which is best? These are pics like the birth of my son etc, priceless and irreplaceable. Thanks Gang
 
Solution
USAFRet
But to your question, I've found FreeFileSync to be very useful in situations like that.

Point it at the top folder on each drive. Compare. It will tell you what is different. Then Sync, in both directions. It will copy in both directions. Now you have a full duplicate on both locations.
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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But to your question, I've found FreeFileSync to be very useful in situations like that.

Point it at the top folder on each drive. Compare. It will tell you what is different. Then Sync, in both directions. It will copy in both directions. Now you have a full duplicate on both locations.
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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you can find many duplicate file finders on the internet. They work by comparing the files not just the names so are pretty good at what they do.

As the above user says. ALWAYS have more then one copy.

For my pictures, I have 3 copies(computer and 2 on external media). I use robocopy for mass copies(robocopy has some basic ability to not copy files that already exist, but it is not advanced at all.) It works great for making another copy of a folder for sure..

I had used a program called Duplicate File Finder 3.5 when I merged all my music onto central storage instead of on each computer and it worked ok to let me kill off all the duplicates that had been on both systems. For those kinds of files, I would take your time.
 
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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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Thanks Major, or is it Lt Colenel?...Senior Master? That's great advice, except I failed to mention this is my second reformat so I'm literally adding the 10,000+ pics to the HDD for a 3rd time...obviously there's no benefit to having 3 copies of the same pics on the same HDD. I do keep them on 3 of my 4 PC's so they're in 4 places. There will be a good 1,000 new ones since my last reformat. Cheers, Airman 1st Class Daly (-;/
Keesler AFB Glendale AZ 1983
 
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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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Thanks, I should have mentioned it's on 3 of my PC's plus my external HDD. I've already saved them twice on the same HDD from previous reformats, don't want to burn up my space with 30,000 pics when I only have 10,000, make sense?
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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OK. The above mentioned FreeFileSync will do pretty much exactly what you need. Compare and sync across folders or drives.

And thank YOU, A1C!
 
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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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Sounds exactly like what I'm looking for, thanks Falcon Man (-;/ I've done a couple of reformats in the past and I was so afraid to tank the job that I just kept "re-saving" duplicate files over and over, but I don't want to waste the space forever. Granted, my entire HD is probably 60 gigs and 1 TB is near 1,000, but it'll start to get pretty messy, not to mention a nightmare to organize when I want to go back and enjoy them ya know? May I ask you a direct question? I don't want to break any rules or bump my own posts etc Thanks Cappy
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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Ask away.
 
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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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Hey thanks Nuke, that's great advice! I was looking at my music and I have 4 and 5 copies of one flippin' song! I saved one on an Android phone backup, a PC backup, an iPod backup etc making my Itunes look like it's got Tourettes (-;/
I will take my time this go, last time I just used the first dupe finder haphazardly and when I reformatted my "numbers" didn't match up (50 gigs going in, 47 gigs after) so I'm pretty sure I lost 2003 heh heh (-;/ Wasn't a great year for me anyway, I had a bad hairstyle (-;/
 
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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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How do I select "best answer" Sir?
 
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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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Can you please delete the one I "chose" as best answer and put your reply please? I didn't select the one posted intentionally...very hard to see this feature, I'm not the first to comment on it. Thanks Cappy
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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You should be able to. I almost never unselect someone else's BA.
 
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wyattspoppa

wyattspoppa

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Ordinarily I wouldn't, but this was a total accident, I wouldn't have chosen "it's a good idea to back up your pics" as my best option when my question was "what program can I use to get rid of duplicate files"...though I'm sure it would be a valuable answer to many others, just not in my case today as I have them in 4 locations. Thanks again Sir
 
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