macOS Monterey

Thanks. I knew that was the process in earlier versions of the macOS, and I wanted to make sure it was still true in Monterey. I wish the Merge option would also appear when the two folders contained files with identical names — but had different dates. I’m still cleaning up a mess created after Catalina moved thousands of my files to the Relocated items folder. I had followed a practice of placing folders in the top level of my hard drive (not within the Documents folder). The lead up to Catalina didn’t seem to warn us about the change in structure that was about to happen, and I was alarmed, to say the least, when all of my data files no longer appeared in the hard drive. I called an Apple tech who was obviously not versed on the change. She told me to use files in the Relocated folder and move the folders where I wished. She said if I followed this practice, the Relocated folder and its contents would eventually disappear. NOT SO! After some time, I realized as I was moving my folders back to where I wanted them, Catalina was actually recopying them in the new location AND retaining a copy in the Relocated folder. I didn’t discover the issue until I realized Spotlight search were sometimes locating the original folder, sometimes locating the moved copy, and sometimes locating both. Over the last two years I’ve been slowly comparing the contents of the thousands of folders that I moved with the copy in Relocated items. Just a few days ago I remembered the Merge option. For someone who’s used Macs since 1985, the Catalina file storage change was the worst situation Apple’s engineers have dumped in my lap. Shame on them!