Merge Two Folders

TidBITS Talk
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I replaced a failing disk, restored files that were on the original disk to the new disk, some of which were synchronized with Box.com, a cloud storage service. The root of the Box files was called Box Sync. Most of these Box files are .pdf, .docx, or .xlsx; nearly none are text files.

The next time Box’s synchronization ran, it decided to rename the root Box Sync → Box Sync (backup) and then proceeded to download all the files in the cloud to a new folder, Box Sync, which left me with a lot of duplicates in two deeply nested folders, namely:

  1. Box Sync (4.83 GB)
  2. Box Sync (backup) (4.82 GB)

Can anyone suggest a good way of merging these two folders together?

Yes, I already looked at this Topic:

But both of my folders are on the same internal SSD, not different Macs, and I want to merge the folders, not just find the differences.

Thank you.

UPDATE: December 20, 2023 2:22 AM

Might the cause of the new sync point be that my home directory is not on same internal drive as my system?

UPDATE: January 7, 2024 10:31 PM

I (accidentally) gave the replacement SSD a name (Macuser) that is slightly different from the name of the failing HDD that it replaced (MacUsers). As a result, the old sync path, (/Volumes/MacUsers/ … /Box Sync/) did not exist, which I presume was the root cause—pun intended!—of Box deciding to create a new sync path (/Volumes/MacUser/ … /Box Sync/ ) and synching all my files there afresh. (How Box found and renamed Box Sync → Box Sync (backup) is a mystery to me.)

In any case, I do NOT think that placing my Home directory on a drive other than the system drive (via  → System Preferences → Users & Groups → [select username, right-click] Advanced Options … ) caused Box to create a new sync point.

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Some of the apps (VisualDiffer, for one) that were mentioned in the discussion you referred to will also let you merge the folders by copying/moving/deleting files within the app without having to go to the Finder.

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I use Softobe’s FoldersSynchronizer for this purpose. It compares the contents and shows you the relative status of each file in the folders being compared. You can let it automatically sync them, or you can manually choose which files to sync. It’s been pretty useful for me.

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There’s a trick in macOS that will merge folders but I can never remember the exact sequence of steps. Something about naming them the same and dropping the second one and the same higher level folder with option or command or control and macOS will offer to merge them. Since I came never remember the details…I would just use CCC to clone folder 1 to a new folder, then clone folder 2 to the same destination with the don’t overwrite newer files option enabled. That should give you a single folder with the latest copy of each file. I would enable the Security Net the second time and then copy the security net folder someplace else just in case…for me it would just go in my archive folder on the RaID since it’s only going to be a few GB anyway.

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Thank you to everyone for your suggestions.

I looked at several of the applications that were mentioned here and in the Topic I referred to in my original post. VisualDiffer is an impressively inexpensive, simple, and clean folder comparison application. I also used CompareMerge2, a more geeky application that includes an in-app file preview pane.

Both applications convinced me that most of the differences between Box Sync and Box Sync (backup) were due to temporary files that we not uploaded to Box due to filename incompatibilities, e.g., temporary Excel files with names beginning with ~$, which I decided to discard going forward. Since I decided not to keep any of the differences, there was no need to merge files, though apparently both applications had support to merge selected files.

Thank you all again!

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Sounds like this is what you are thinking of; scroll down to “Merge two folders with the same name”:

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