I've just had to merge two folders (quick and dirty) and the option "Rename Old (All)" seemed quite useful. Afterwards however I was a bit disappointed that it renames the old files to "Filename (Original).filetype". IMO a satisfying solution would be something like "Filename (Old DateModified).fileextension, eg. Example (Old 2023-07-21).png. The last modified date is what is used to identify which file is the older one and is changed when renaming the file, so doesn't it make sense to put it in the filename?
(Of couse, having a custom renaming option in that dialog might also solve this.)
I've searched the forums but haven't found any similar questions. Is there already a workaround that does something like this, eg. compare two folders to identify duplicates, rename the older ones and then copy everything?
Is an option like "Rename old with date last modified" already considered to be added in the future?
Any plans on making a more powerful confirm replace dialog in the future? I've always wondered why dialogs like this do not simply compare all files first and then present a list (table) with a comparison of all files and some options to choose for all or specific files.
That would certainly be a good solution when renaming the newer file to add the present date (like someone else wanted to do in that related topic).
In my case, however, the date modified has been changed by the confirm replace operation already to the current date. So the date that I wanted is overwritten and gone for good (unless I'm missing something).
(I've now used the regular rename dialog to replace "Original" with "Older version", but it would have been nicer to have the date in there.)
Edit: I've checked again and there seems to be a different date instead of the current date, but both versions have the same date. I have to check again what actually happened there...
I've tested it with sample files and the result is as you said:
Neither copying nor renaming changes the "Date Modified".
I'm still not sure why both versions in the actual folders that I merged have the same dates for both versions...
I'm certain the Confirm replace dialog showed me that one file is newer than the other and I clicked on Replace > Rename Old (All).
So after some more testing I think what happened is, most files had the same date but the image that was actually compared in the Confirm replace dialog had different dates and when I clicked on Replace > Rename Old (All), the following happened:
But what I expected was that it would only duplicate those that have different dates.
Thanks... in my case, that would have worked, because the files in the source folder were either newer (Modified Date) or identical.
However, I've now checked the help page in detail and I believe the wording in this dialog is the problem.
"Old" and "New" are first used to refer to "file from source folder" and "file in target folder". This would be misleading wording even on it's own, but the "Modified date" is a key element in this dialog, which led my to believe the dialog actually talks about "newer" files instead of files from the source folder.
The writer of the help page was probably aware of this, because the help page talks about "incoming file" and "existing file".
But that's not all, the last command also talks about "newer" files ("Keep Newer (All)"), but here it actually refers to the modified date! (Still not what I was looking for though, because it cannot copy+rename.)
Also, in the last case, the word "Keep" isn't perfect either, because this dialog is not only shown for cut+paste but also for copy+paste.
I wouldn't have thought about that, because the dialog is set up like it would address all issues in this dialog, so wasn't a logical step for me to first skip identical and therefore close the dialog and then have another dialog (the same one) pop up again and click what to decide with the other files.
Wouldn't a checkbox "Skip Identical files" make more sense?
