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Before Mavericks one could hold the ALT key and move a folder 'A' onto a folder 'B' where already an 'A' existed. In this case Mac OS X asked in Lion if I want to merge - or on Mountain Lion if I want to keep both (which was also a merge).
Active4 years, 2 months ago
I can't find this option in Mavericks.
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Dec 14,2017 16:16 pm / Post By Aaron Donald to Transfer. Aaron Donald is an avid IT geek and smart phone enthusiast who is dedicating himself to write high quality articles for Apple users to fix iOS issues. This tool has been excellent in tracking the contributions of our team members and noting what changes have been made to our files. 2) If there is ever an issue with our code we can use Git to role back to a previous version.
Did Apple remove this useful feature?
Copying Folders
(And yes: I own ForkLift, which can do it - I just sometimes still prefer the Finder).
dwightk
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DerWOKDerWOK
6 AnswersBatch File For Copying Files
OK. I found out myself.. Luckily Apple did not remove the Finder Merge functionality with Mavericks. But sometimes it is not offered to the user. But let me explain:
Supose you have a folder named TARGET with a subfolder TARGET/SomeStuff. And you have a SomeStuff folder somewhere else. Now drag this second SomeStuff folder to the TARGET folder (without any modifier keys pressed) then the Finder will presented you the following dialog (Stop and Replace):
So, no merge here.
Now - if you instead press the Alt key while you drop the SomeStuff folder to the TARGET folder there are two possibilities:
1.) If the files in the two SomeStuff Folder have completely different (not overlapping) contents. In other words: no duplicate filenames. Then finder will give you these options (Stop, Merge & Replace All):
So, here you can merge. And the result will be a TARGET/SomeStuff folder with the content of both SomeStuff folders.
2.) But here comes what is sometimes confusing (and actually made me think merging is gone in Mavericks): if there exists at least one filename that is contained in both SomeStuff folders, then merging is not possible. Then the finder will offer you these options (Don't Replace, Stop, Replace):
So, no merge possible, here too!
DerWOKDerWOK
Short answer
Using the command line (Terminal):
The command above adds the
src content and the subdirectories to the destination without overwriting the content already present in the destination .
![]() Long answer
Even if the content overlaps, you can still use
cp to do it. Assume that you have two folders on your desktop: the src and the destination folders and you want to merge src into destination :
To merge, just do:
NOTE When you use this, the content in
src overwrites the content in the destination folder and adds the extra stuff that are missing in the destination . It shouldn't matter if you just want to add the missing files from src into destination .
ALSO it doesn't matter how many subdirectories are there, it will just go through each folder recursively and it will overwrite the content and will add the stuff that is missing in the
destination folder.
BUT
PITFALL Admin rcon tool for mac. If you have huge files (like video files), you don't want to wait until everything is overwritten, it adds a lot of overhead.
PITFALL SOLUTION: Instead, you can use the
-n flag to skip the overwriting:
This is the description of the
-n flag from the man page:
Visio like tool for mac. Further Reading
Community♦
AJ MeyghaniAJ Meyghani
I just found this problem too. I worked round it by using a simple command line Alex
cp -r command in Terminal. It's crazy that you can't do it in the GUI!
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TimTim
Having not found my answer above, I am compelled to redirect you to that other answer which rightly advices to use the ditto command:
In a Terminal, type: ditto from_folder destination_folder, for instance:
Community♦
Stéphane BruckertStéphane Bruckert
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For users who want an alternative GUI or fear terminal: here is a free App that I found that will merge folders for you. Bar stool for sale.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with the company that makes the app.
The copywright is 2012. There is little feedback, but it seems to work fine.
NohlNohl
I found this from Apple Support (http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14224), you need to choose 'Keep newer' to merge, works for me:
Merge two folders
If you have two folders with identical names at two different locations, you can merge them into a single folder. To do so, you must copy (not move) one folder to the location that already contains a folder with the same name. In the dialog that appears, click Merge.
The Merge option appears only if one of the folders contains items that are not in the other folder. If the folders contain different versions of identically named files, the only options are Stop or Replace.
Jan
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user77537user77537
You must log in to answer this question.protected by grg♦Jun 23 '15 at 17:52
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