In Winmerge, how can I compare folder structure alone (no file comparison)?

Question

After years of backups and copying massive directories from one computer to another, I have a right royal mess. Duplicate finder software and winmerge want to get down and dirty by exploring individual files. Given the scale of the problem the searches or scans take forever and present me with overwhelmingly long lists.

I want to compare folder names and directory structures. Once I have done that it would be quite easy to zoom in on several couples of folders to compare the files in and then I can decide what can be deleted, what can be deleted and what should be merged.

In winmerge, I cannot find out how to compare folder names only.

Pompadour

Answer 1

I had the same problem today. For the speed you can change Edit -> Options -> Compare -> Folder -> menu compare method. I chose Size.

Dissemblance

Unfortunately, your answer does not allow me to simply compare folder structure. Your solution may speed up the search but it is speeding up a search that I am not looking for. I want to compare folder (or you may call it directory or you may call it tree) structure. – Pompadour

version 2.16.8 : Edit -> Options -> Compare ->Folder-> menu compare method – Flynn

@fernandospr What an idiot I am! I've been comparing two drives' contents (multiple TB) for the last two days to make sure they were synced properly and my "Compares" were taking two or more hours at a time. I tried to filter out the largest files, etc. but that only helped slightly. For some reason, I had thought "Quick" would be the fastest and didn't even try "Modified date and size" until I saw your post here. I set that and the results were almost instant! Less than 5 seconds and it showed all files that were not the same on the two drives. Thank you! facepalm – Combatant

Answer 2

Guess your problem is already sorted out.

I suggest using the tree option available from View->Tree Mode and expand the folders if required while using the size criteria. I am sure you will need to peek inside some of the folders.

Also make sure View->Show Identical Items is unchecked to reduce the clutter.

Pyretic

Answer 3

Use this filter.

name: Skip files compare directories
desc: Skip files compare directories
def: exclude
d: \\*$

Here is documentation about filters: https://manual.winmerge.org/en/Filters.html

I had to experiment around a little to make this filter. My first attempt (unsuccessful) was an "include" filter with f: \*$. Sounds like it should work, but it doesn't.

Niggard

Answer 4

You probably already found the solution, but I was told to do this way. First open File Explorer and navigate to the folder that you want to compare and let's say that folder is folderA. Next open another File Explorer to your second folder for comparison which is folderB. start up WinMerge and maximize it to full screen mode, then drag folderA to WinMerge screen as result this will pop up the window that you normally seen when you click on File->Open menu in WinMerge. So next just drag folderB to that popped up window and wait for bit then the Ok button will turn into clickable so click on it then the comparison will start.

After comparison completes, look under the column Comparison result. The difference is usually at the bottom of the column.

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