Question About Deleting Files...

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Alright here's the deal, I have a folder with about 7,000 files, and another folder with 1,300 files. Every file in the the smaller folder is a duplicate of a file from the bigger folder. It's a temporary folder. I need to now delete the original files from the master folder, and in the past i've always done it one at a time, matching the name of a file from the temp folder to the master folder and deleting it..

Is there a faster way of doing this? Telling windows to delete files in a given folder with the same name as the files in another given folder?

I doubt it but it's worth a shot, right?

[Mogobs30th]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

Delete everything.

[Smoke Panther]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

Open both folders, 1300-folder and 7000-folder. Highlight every file in the 7000 and drag them over to the 1300-folder. When windows asks if you want to replace the duplicate file with the new one, click no. All the duplicate files will be left in the 7000-folder, then just highlight and delete all of those

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

But then wouldn't I be left with the same problem getting the remaining 5700 files back into the main folder?

[Smoke Panther]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

^just copy those from the original 1300 folder back into the original 7000 folder

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

right, but wouldn't I have to deselect the 1300 files to move the 5700 back? and in essence be in the exact same situation but opposite folders?

[Smoke Panther]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

oh. I thought you were just trying to get rid of multiple copies of the same files. Looks like you're in for a long night, going one by one and finding the duplicates

[silvachris1]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

Ok, try this:
Open up your "Temp Folder"
Hit Ctrl-A to select all files.
Then Crtl-C to copy them.
After that, open up your "Master Folder"
Hit Ctrl-V to paste all the copied files from the Temp Folder. This will replace all of the duplicate files in the "Master Folder" with the ones from the "Temp Folder"; without deleting them from the "Temp Folder" location. Without hitting any other keys, every file you pasted should now be highlighted in the "Master Folder".
Hit delete
Click yes. This will delete all of the selected files, which happen to be the duplicates that are still saved in the "Temp Folder".

Hopefully I got all that right. Give it a practice try on a couple files and see how it works out.

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

thank you! that's what I was looking for. This seriously saved me about 10-12 hours..

[silvachris1]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

Awesome dude. Glad it worked out for you.

[nikon]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

Damn dude, you must have alot of porn..... :p

[mestupryan]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

Damn dude, you must have alot of porn..... :p

haha my thoughts exactly

[TheGr8Schlotzky]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

Damn dude, you must have alot of porn..... :p

:eek:.. :naughty:.. :rock:


Nah, it's for work. Very important files, which is why i copied to a temp in the first place instead of just cutting and pasting each file to the new location.. just in case something goes wrong.

[Mogobs30th]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

:eek:.. :naughty:.. :rock:


Nah, it's for work. Very important files, which is why i copied to a temp in the first place instead of just cutting and pasting each file to the new location.. just in case something goes wrong.

You have a job?

[zlexiss]

Re: Question About Deleting Files...

You prob need a good backup / file synchronization program - try syncback, if you go into the advanced options you can prob specify the behavior well enough.

(google syncback for the program home page)