[pixelcruncher]

So FoldersSynchronize and Chronosync allow me to perform copies with filters based on names, file types, and dates, but is there a (smaller, cheaper?) utility that allows copying a folder hierarchy while filtering the files in them?

[pixelcruncher]

Well, we tried just a massive copy of all our files then a Spotlight search for the .wav files we were trying to get rid of on the copied drive. Then we thought we'd just move those .wav files to the trash. Big mistake. My Mac is absolutely paralyzed (and it looks like it will be for several hours) as it tries to move those files (several thousand) to the trash. The trash is overwhelmed, I'm getting hundreds of error messages that the trash is too busy for this file or that. So for anyone googling "smart copy mac" out there, go ahead and invest in chronosync or folderssynchronizer if several hours of your time are worth it. I haven't tried either, but it's got to be better than this. Live and learn.

[Chuckit]

That's strange. There's no obvious reason why moving files would do that. I've actually copied hundreds of thousands of files (and copying is much more difficult that moving) and it didn't lock the computer up for hours. What kind of system do you have?

[mduell]

find, grep, and cp are your friends.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by pixelcruncher 

Well, we tried just a massive copy of all our files then a Spotlight search for the .wav files we were trying to get rid of on the copied drive. Then we thought we'd just move those .wav files to the trash. Big mistake. My Mac is absolutely paralyzed (and it looks like it will be for several hours) as it tries to move those files (several thousand) to the trash. The trash is overwhelmed, I'm getting hundreds of error messages that the trash is too busy for this file or that. So for anyone googling "smart copy mac" out there, go ahead and invest in chronosync or folderssynchronizer if several hours of your time are worth it. I haven't tried either, but it's got to be better than this. Live and learn.

for backing up (all except .wav files) in Terminal...

rsync -aEPvxz --exclude "*.wav" /path/to/source/ /path/to/destination/


for removing .wav files in Terminal...

find -x /path/to/folder -iname "*.wav" -print0 |xargs -0 rm -vfR

[moving a ton of stuff to the trash isn't very efficient... just delete in place.]

[pixelcruncher]

That's strange. There's no obvious reason why moving files would do that. I've actually copied hundreds of thousands of files (and copying is much more difficult that moving) and it didn't lock the computer up for hours. What kind of system do you have?

I guess it was the way we did it, which was dragging the files straight out of Spotlight into the trash. It created a separate "Move to Trash" instance for every single file (rather than a progress bar and file countdown) which the finder (or the trash?) couldn't seem to keep up with. We were trying to copy between two firewire drives via FW800. Afterwards we experimented and found trying to move more than 250 files out of Spotlight to the trash resulted in error messages and some of the files weren't moved.

Dual 2.7
4GB RAM
10.4.11

[pixelcruncher]

I'll jump over to the Mac OS X forum in a bit and get some lessons in command line copying.

[Hal Itosis]

Originally Posted by pixelcruncher 

I guess it was the way we did it, which was dragging the files straight out of Spotlight into the trash. It created a separate "Move to Trash" instance for every single file (rather than a progress bar and file countdown) which the finder (or the trash?) couldn't seem to keep up with. We were trying to copy between two firewire drives via FW800. Afterwards we experimented and found trying to move more than 250 files out of Spotlight to the trash resulted in error messages and some of the files weren't moved.

Practically all of the Finder crashes I've seen in Leopard have been when Spotlight results windows were open.
[and likely i was moving stuff around as well.]