[madmacgames]

Hello all. Have a pretty simple question: How can I get OS X to ammend the current directory structure when copying files instead of completely replace. For example I have a web program and sometimes build or addin mods for it and on my PC box I could just for example copy "admin" to "admin" and it would copy all the new files over and any existing files it would ask if I wanted to overwrite. But in OS X it only gives me the option to replace the admin folder or stop copying. But I don't want to replace the entire folder... I just want to add the new files, which is a pain to copy into their right locations as it goes 6 folder levels at times.

[SMacTech]

If you use rsync from terminal it is very easy. You can create a cron job to run them. It will only copy or erase changes to the directory making it run much faster than a full folder copy.
I don't know if that is what you want but it can be completely unattended operation.

[madmacgames]

yes I only want to copy changes to the directory. next time I will give rsync a try. does cp from command line also completely replace the entire folder rather than add the new items?

[SMacTech]

Use this syntax : rsync -avz /Users/name /backup

/Users/name is the source and backup is the destination. In this instance backup is a folder at the root volume of the same drive. You can have the destination be some other drive by using /Volumes/drivename/backup

The cp command will not backup resource forks, as rsync will. Use ditto instead of cp if you find the need to use it. cp will copy then entire folder.

[Brass]

Or if you don't like using the command line, and would like a GUI, there are several synchronisation/backup utilities available.

I use Synk X. It's free and very easy to use. Works well.