Serial File movements

Software
1

I do a lot of movement of files on my Mac Mini with a number of external drives, some of which are Spinning HDDs. Some of the files are many files from the same source to the same destinations, others are a single file to specific folders. All are bespoke (i.e. not scriptable in advance)

The problem I have is that I like to set a few file copies going and then come back later, but by doing this it sets the drives to thrash as it copies up to a dozen different files from different sources to different destinations, often on the same drives which causes the drive head to thrash, meaning the copy takes longer, it probably leads to fragmentation of the files and definitely takes longer to complete.

Does anyone know of an application which would allow me to queue these to happen serially rather than in parallel?

2

I’ve not tried the Mac version, but this is what I use Teracopy on Windows for. I can then queue these up.

Alternatively, I quickly whip up a shellscript to use rsync to copy the files across - this will then run the commands one after another.

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3

Finder replacement app Pathfinder has File Copy Queues. Also CopyQueue app by Curio Software.

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4

You can create individual jobs with Chronosync then create a container that will run them in the desired sequence. Fifteen day free trial, one time purchase.

5

I believe that ForkLift will queue

6

FileZilla is nice, and free.
It also does ftp, sftp, etc.

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7

That one dates back to the turn of the century. I used it for many years. +1

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8

I can confirm it does.

9

Are you copying whole directory trees or individual files scattered around here and there? If it’s the former then rsync might work for you.

10

No, a few files at a time

11

…to the point of being irritating sometimes. I had downloads going from an FTP server, and I wanted to move a few local files. It queued that move up for after it got done with the FTP downloads. :smiley:

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12

That’s totally correct. But queuing it does :smiley:

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13

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I ended up trying Forklift and it’s been great. Queueing copies and I prefer the 3 pane view to having two Finder windows open too.

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