Hi, I'm trying to consolidate a large number of files held within a directory structure. Some files occur more than once in the structure, usually identical, but not guaranteed. So, I've set the lister to flat view, selected all, Copy, then Paste to the target directory, selecting to not recreate the directory structure. The only details that I have to decide which to keep are the size and dates, but it's possible that the contents is changed but the date is the same. Rather than copy with rename and use Duplicate Files to weed them out, it'd be handy to have in the Paste dialog an option to MD5 both files (if size and dates match) and if they're the same hash then copy one, but if they're different then copy both, renaming one?
Thanks! I hope that I explained that sufficiently?
Hi.
First, I think there is a misunderstanding : the message box displays information about both files such as date and size to help you identify wich file you keep.
You also have the options to rename "old" or "new" file if you want to keep both. : Strike this, misunderstanding seems to be on my side 
Then, you could also :
- Use the find duplicates function and decide on which settings the comparison is made (checksum being one of them)
- Directly force MD5 calculation to check in flat view if you have dupes
Here is a little button that will add a "Checksum MD5" column and compute MD5 on selected files
Calculate MD5.dcf (312 Bytes)
This works best when you have only a few files, otherwise, searching for dupes is imo the superior option. It is in first few commands in the "Tools" standard menu.
Note that MD5 calculation speed may vary depending on file size, number of files, drive type (hdd/ssd) and cpu.
Thanks! I'll take the button and have a play