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File Folder Device Sync Chaos

files syncing ipad iphone laptop dropbox comparing contents of folders

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#1
gina riggio

gina riggio

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Greetings.

 

I am in need of some advice. About to have a mental meltdown.

 

I am a personal assistant for a 50-something businessperson who does not know how to use her technology. My job is to help her do this. I guess I'm kind of like a marketing/IT/problem solver/everything person.

 

Anyway, my employer has an iPad, an iPhone, and a drop box account that she wants to keep synchronized. She had not been keeping up to date with her "sync"ing so now there are hundreds of videos and thousands of pictures on dropbox, on her ipad, and on her phone and they are all slightly different. I anticipate that there are many many duplicates, but there are far too many files to check by hand. Some of the videos are the same but have slightly different file names. It's pure chaos.

 

I have tried to explain to her that the best way to handle this problem is through prevention, to organize as you go, and be frugal with your drive space. I explained that she needed to name files right after creating them, make folders, sort them, and keep up to date with syncing. She explained that "she just is still learning how to use it, so i know it seems easy to you." Hmph.

 

Despite this, does anyone know of any programs that are cheap or free that I can use to compare the contents of her ipad, iphone, and dropbox without double uploading? Some of these video files are several hundred megabytes and the dropbox capacity is 1TB so uploading hundreds of large videos would quickly fill up the drop box.  It seems like a fruitless endeavor to do this just to compare files side by side. I had hoped at first that the file names were at least the same so I could sit through the upload and duplicates would be overwritten but it just doesn't seem to be working out that way.

 

I have no idea what to do. I have tried searching Google for the last hour for scripts or downloadable applications that I can use to accomplish what I'm trying to do in a sane way....it may not exist but I thought I'd ask some experts just in case there is hope.

 

Thanks a million!


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#2
SleepyDude

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Hi,

 

I'm not sure you can find duplicates directly, I think your best option is to connect the Dropbox account with a computer and let it download all the files then you can use a program to locate duplicated files and remove them, do this with Dropbox disconnect and next time you connect it will delete all the duplicates.


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Also tagged with one or more of these keywords: files, syncing, ipad, iphone, laptop, dropbox, comparing, contents, of, folders

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