Applescript to sort similar filenames in a folder - and delete all dupes but the most recent

Question

Level 1

18 points

Applescript to sort similar filenames in a folder - and delete all dupes but the most recent

Trying to sort thru about 1800 files .txt format. About 1/2 of these are dupes. In nearly every case, the filenames are similar between 2-3 files. Looking to build an Applescript that will:

Browse all filenames in a folder and look for similarities between filenames. Typically the first 5-10 characters will be the same.

if at least two files have similar filenames, compare file modification dates

determine which file(s) are older

delete older file(s)

Process all files until done

Ive been reading up on the find command and using its sort attribute, but not getting very far.

Any advice would be great!

Posted on Feb 12, 2019 9:19 AM

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Answer 1

Mar 7, 2019 3:01 PM in response to NITEBOATER

AppleScript is not wise choice for that. Try fdupes, or jdupes.

If you need more speed use jdupes, but it do more strict data comparison.

To install them use HomeBrew package manager.

Press Command+Space and type Terminal and press enter/return key.

Run in Terminal app:

ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null

and press enter/return key.

If the screen prompts you to enter a password, please enter your Mac's user password to continue. When you type the password, it won't be displayed on screen, but the system would accept it. So just type your password and press ENTER/RETURN key. Then wait for the command to finish.

Run:

brew install fdupes

Run:

brew install jdupes

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Answer 2

Mar 10, 2019 12:11 PM in response to NITEBOATER

You could also try one of duplicate files finder with graphical interface.

dupeGuru is fast, simple and free.

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Answer 3

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Feb 16, 2019 1:35 PM in response to NITEBOATER

You could investigate my bash script.

see https://pastebin.com/raw/Yd8Ky3Jn

You will need to run from the terminal. You will need to mark runable. Example

chmod 744 your-name-of-bash-script

terminal help.

https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-11071

R

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Answer 4

NITEBOATER Author

Level 1

18 points

Feb 17, 2019 12:14 PM in response to rccharles

Hey RC,

That's quite an impressive script. I was however - not able to use it in any case, its far more complicated than my simple requirement. I much appreciate your input in any case. Eventually stumbled on - BBEdit v12 - trial version - was able to help sort things out. It has a function where it can indentify the hash (put in each txt document by the awful Notes app's import function, I needed these gone and BBEdit can do it. Strangely, it does not seem to also be able to delete from its search results, what a PIA. In the end, I had to manually perform routine tasks, even after grepping many files.

Too bad to this date there still is no comprehensive Finder alternative that can search as well as Houdahspot and BBEdit, but also delete according to rules and grep strings, you are just s.0.l apparently. Perhaps I should be the one to tackle SWIFT and encode and build a true solution.

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Answer 5

rccharles

Level 6

13,037 points

Feb 17, 2019 12:47 PM in response to NITEBOATER

Thanks for the report.

You can see I revised that script about 9 years ago. I rewrote about 75% of it. I wish that I had re-written it in python now, so maybe I could figure out what it does more easily. Sometime close to never, I need to revise it to make it more generic.

R

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Answer 6

VikingOSX

Level 10

124,298 points

Mar 7, 2019 3:59 PM in response to ⁤aaplCore

Homebrew will require a compilation suite (eg. Apple Command-Line Tools for Xcode, or GNU C) installed before it can successfully compile and install the binary jdupes or fdupes applications. Most end users do not have these.

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