[SOLVED] Duplicate files to find between list and external harddrive

[XAreonX]

I hope this is the right place to ask.

So I have been saving pictures for a couple years now and making backups on an external hard drive and also on Google photos. Recently, we made a photo album on Google photos that has about 600 picture in it that we want to print but since the pictures are all compressed on Google photos, the quality isn't good enough. I have a list of all the original file names from the album we made and my question is this:

Is there a way to just input all the file names somewhere at the same time and search for the originals? Or do I have to search them 1 by 1 on windows search?

 

[Eximo]

Nothing straightforward that I can think of.

Powershell can be used to generate a list of all files in a folder on a Windows computer. Look up the command Get-ChildItem and exporting to CSV in powershell. This can include the complete path to each file.

As for getting the list of files off of Google drive, not sure. If it is a folder accessible in Windows, powershell should work. If it is accessible only through an app or browser, you might end up having to do it by hand. There are some methods out there on the internet, but I'm not clear if these scripts are safe to use. https://www.acrosswalls.org/ortext-datalinks/list-google-drive-folder-file-names-urls/

Once you have both you can use Excel or another spreadsheet application, like google sheets, to perform a Vlookup (Or Index & Match), or other line item lookup. Then you can go back into Powershell with the list of files you want and move/copy them to a new folder.

If that all sounds complicated, it is.

 

[XAreonX]

Nothing straightforward that I can think of.

Powershell can be used to generate a list of all files in a folder on a Windows computer. Look up the command Get-ChildItem and exporting to CSV in powershell. This can include the complete path to each file.

As for getting the list of files off of Google drive, not sure. If it is a folder accessible in Windows, powershell should work. If it is accessible only through an app or browser, you might end up having to do it by hand. There are some methods out there on the internet, but I'm not clear if these scripts are safe to use. https://www.acrosswalls.org/ortext-datalinks/list-google-drive-folder-file-names-urls/

Once you have both you can use Excel or another spreadsheet application, like google sheets, to perform a Vlookup (Or Index & Match), or other line item lookup. Then you can go back into Powershell with the list of files you want and move/copy them to a new folder.

If that all sounds complicated, it is.

Yeah, it sounds pretty complicated.

 

[gardenman]

Are all of the originals located in 1 place (a single drive?) If so, and the list is a simple plain text, then something like this might work: https://stackoverflow.com/questions...-script-that-searches-for-files-based-on-list

Note there are 3 examples on that page with the last one supposedly being the fastest. I haven't tested any of them, but could if needed (and if I had more info).

 

[Eximo]

The way I look at things is if I am doing something once, just do it by hand. If I can automate parts of it to make it easier, do so. But don't go for full automation not knowing if it can be easily done, since it might take a long time and be frustrating when errors pop up.

The issue is really the plain text.

Here are some resources:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/15261225/powershell-get-childitem-to-csv-with-details

And the above google drive option:

List Google Drive Folder File Names and URLs to a Google Sheet | Communicating with Prisoners

Vlookup in google sheets:

https://support.google.com/docs/answer/3093318?hl=en

Once you have two files with filenames, and you separate those into columns, you can match up the files names to match up the other data, then have a list. Take that list into a new CSV file and you use powershell with your backup folder to separate out the ones you want.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/35437756/powershell-copy-files-based-on-csv-contents