The resulting files, links, and devices will have the same mode, access time, modification time, owner, and group as the source items from which they are copied. Any files that weren’t common to both folders will be added to the new folder, along with all of the identical files.Actually, the man page does describe how ditto merges, and it contradicts the article:ĭitto overwrites existing files, symbolic links, and devices in the destination when these are copied from a source. FileMerge will ask you for a new directory name, and then proceed to merge the two directories into a new one. Then select Combine Files from the Merge pop-up menu (or press Command-1). To do this, select all the files in the leftmost column (click on one and then hit Command-A to select all). But you can also use FileMerge to actually merge the two folders together into one new one. If all you wanted to do was to visually compare the two folders’ contents, you’re done. Read more about these options in FileMerge’s Help file.

The Ancestor and Merge views only apply to people using FileMerge to check code. Choose Comparison (for text files only) to open the traditional FileMerge comparison window, or use the Left File and Right File options to see the actual text or images in the specified folder.

If you’d like to look at any of the files, click the View button to display a drop-down menu of options. Launch it, then drag one folder into each drop zone in the Compare Files window: You could invest in a synchronization utility such as Econ Technologies’ $30ĬhronoSync, but that might be overkill for your needs. For example, say you have two folders of images, and you’d like them to be identical. This feature is very handy if you do a lot of work with HTML, PHP, or other pure text files, and often have multiple versions of a basically-identical file on your disk.īut what not many people know is that you can also use FileMerge to compare two folders.

This program is typically used to compare two text files-drag files to the Left and Right drop zones in the Compare Files window, and FileMerge will put up a comparison page that shows the differences between the two files. Consider FileMerge, which you’ll find in /Developer -> Applications -> Utilities. But it’s worth exploring the Developer folder, as it holds some very useful tools. Installed Xcode, you may not use it much unless you create software for a living.

Macos diff 2 folders