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Forum Discussion
Folder comparison, either local or online
Using Dropbox Business, just under 1TB of data online, different folders shared with different users/groups.
Recently I created a new Team folder and copied the contents of a large Shared folder to it. Objective is to properly manage permissions for users viewing and accessing all the subfolders.
My oversight was to make the folder names very similar. Users began copying working files into the new Team folder before I was ready to do a cut-over, ugh. I chatted with Dropbox support & asked if there was any utility to do folder comparison, but they said there's nothing native to Dropbox environment for that, unfortunately.
Did some searching, ran across a utility called Beyond Compare by Scooter Software, which will do file/folder/image comparisons between two locations. It also has an API for Dropbox. Downloaded the 30-day trial, connected to my Dropbox account online, and it's showing ALL the ~20k files for each of my two folders in question, everything color-coded and very easy to tell what's missing in which folder. Don't need to have the folders all downloaded locally, it's running the comparison on my online folders. AMAZING tool, very happy to have stumbled upon it.
Just thought I'd share my experience
Pete
- Lusil
Dropbox Staff
Hi there dragonlarcg, welcome to the Dropbox Community.
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and experience on this, awesome work with the troubleshooting as well!
I’d be more than happy to leave this thread open for others to comment here as well, but if you have any questions for us in the future, don’t hesitate to give us a nudge.
In the meantime, I hope you have a lovely day ahead!
Hi Pete
I have just downloaded the Beyond Compare software, not very intuitive I have to say and the help file is ...unhelpful.
I have worked out how to use it on local file sets but you mention a Dropbox API. I want to be able to compare my local files with those backed up to Drop box just to make sure it is actually happening as there are some 200,000 of them.
If you could assist with the Dropbox (online) side of the setup I would really appreciate it 🙂
Kind regards,
Paul
Unfortunately, the Dropbox API for Beyond Compare can't access online files that are in a Dropbox team account (Business Standard and Advanced accounts). They are working on a solution, but it probably won't be available until 2023. Does anyone know of a current way to compare online Dropbox files in those types of accounts to local files?
- Megan
Hi Michael Gyori, happy Thursday!
At the moment, we don't a feature that's able to do exactly what you ask. The best way to go on about it, would be to reach out to the developers of the API, and ask for a possible workaround, until they roll out the official solution.
Also, the thread remains open for others to suggest and add anything on this too.
Thanks a bunch!
