Zorin connect duplicating files

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1

Hi all,
The usual introduction! I am new to Zorin forums.

I have swiched to Zorin from Windows and I am very impressed.

I have just installed Zorin connect on my Android phone and had no issues connecting, however after transferring several photos from phone to pc I sent a few more and a couple that I had already sent, I was expecting to be given the option to skip, replace or duplicate, I did not receive this message and it automatically duplicated the photo.

Any guidance to rectify this would be appreciated.

Cheers Tony

2

Hi, and welcome to Zorin OS!

Do you mean like this?

sc1
sc1890×550 10.1 KB

I'm also not being prompted about duplicates. Looking in the settings, I don't see any options about this either. I guess Zorin Connect is handling this automatically to avoid blocking the transfer of multiple files while waiting for user input, but I can't say for sure.

Maybe someone else knows about a way to deal with this cleanly, but for the time being I can offer you a homemade solution using the command line. I know it sounds scary but you can copy & paste the commands that I've written below.

Not that you should trust total strangers with this type of thing if you don't at least understand it, so here's an article that covers a few programs to handle this type of situation. It seems that only a couple have graphical interfaces though, but it's worth a try:

Either way, I think it would be a good feature to have, so I'll move this thread over to Feedback if we can't find a built-in solution.

  1. Launch "Terminal" from the applications menu.

  2. Create a separate directory to store duplicate files:

    mkdir ~/Desktop/Duplicates

    You can also do this using the graphical interface, through the file manager. I'm only leaving this here for consistency.

  3. Run the following command to find duplicate entries:

    find ~/Downloads -type f -exec md5sum {} + | sort | uniq -w32 -dD

    This command does not make any changes. It only prints duplicate files so that you can take a quick look and make sure things work. I'm assuming your transferred files are all stored in the Downloads folder, since that's the default.

  4. Move duplicate files into the "Duplicates" folder created earlier:

    find ~/Downloads -type f -exec md5sum {} + | sort | uniq -w32 -dD \
    | perl -ae 'BEGIN {$/="  "} print if /\(\d+\)$/' \
    | xargs -I {} mv {} ~/Desktop/Duplicates

    Same as before but this time moving all files that end with (1) (or whatever other number) into the folder created earlier, stored in the Desktop. You can go through that folder to make sure that everything is the way it's supposed to be. I'd suggest opening two instances of the file manager and put them side by side to have a better idea of which files are where.

2 Likes
3

Hi Zenzen,
Thanks for moving this over.
Yes, duplication as per your screen shot.
I agree that this should be handled automatically, I had my douts, and that is why I copied with a couple of repeat files.
My intention is to select all and send, but now I know, for the interim at least, I will workaround to find and remove duplicates if necessary.

4

Hi Zenzen,
I have just reread your post and realised I didn't let it sink in properly.
Using terminal for commands isn't scary, though I'm not fullyconversant with code etc I have been using it, but yes, good advise, not to trust strangers, though you're advise looks harmless enough, thanks.
No it's not in my downloads folder as I directed it to place in a folder on my shared storage drive.
Cheers Tony

1 Like
5

I'm moving this to Feedback as I haven't found any setting to show a prompt to deal with duplicate files.

I assumed you had too many files to remove duplicates by hand which is where a little automation can help. Do you still need help with this? We can tweak the command above if needed. Although, to be perfectly honest, I'd avoid running commands against external shared drives.

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6

Hi Zenzen,
Thank you for your willingness to help, it is greatly appreciated.
At the moment I am happy to figure this sort of thing out, it helps in the learning curve, but if it stumps me I'll definitely call out for help.
In the meantime lets hope that the zorin connect team can come up with a cure.
Cheers

7

Okay,

So I've had a bit of time to play.

The reason I tried Zorin Connect was for ease of connection and photo transfer navigation, that is, wifi connection, select required photos and send to preset folder location, I would have expected that if a photo already existed in the target folder that I would receive prompts as per my op.

So until this feature is available it is just as quick to use my USB cable and navigate using Nautilus, along with a few folder shortcuts, then Nautilus prompts before transferring a file that already exists in the target folder.

1 Like