Compare Directories and Copy Unique Files

Third Dir is an interesting software created by the Slovakian software developer Robert Vašíček. The basic use of Third Dir it is to compare the files of one directory with another and move all unique files of the first directory to a third directory. The first thing that I noticed after downloading the application was its tiny size, it has a size of only 32 Kilobytes unpacked.

The GUI is a bit messy at first but the help file has some hints on how to use the different parameters properly. The user can define files and directories that are excluded from being compared, wildcards are supported.

The next two lines are paths of two directories. The first path is the so called input directory which contains the files that are compared with the files of a second directory and copied to the third if they are found to be unique.

The next settings can be ignored and the last required field is the output directory where the unique files of directory 1 are copied to.

Instead of selecting a second directory it is possible to select a file list from the hard disk instead but there is unfortunately no information about its format. The four check boxes on the other hand are easily explained.

• Dates: Will copy newer files with the same file size
• Lengths: Files with the same name but different lengths will be copied.
• Update: Only files existing in both directories but with a newer date in the first will be copied.
• Recursive: Subfolders are included in the comparison.

Third Dir is a nice application especially for its size. It’s fast and reliable but definitely needs a better help and some GUI improvements.

Related Articles:

Author: Martin Brinkmann, Thursday July 17, 2008 -
Tags:file comparison, files, Software, Windows