My photo backups are all a bit of a mess. I have multiple backups with the same pics in several different locations, but not in any organised fashion (pics are also in subfolders, though I think I might combine them all into one, and in any case that shouldn’t make any difference).

What I want to do is copy all the files into a single location to rationalise – I could just use standard Windows copy and paste and let it ignore files with duplicate names (or overwrite duplicate names). But I’m not 100% sure I don’t have some different pics with the same name, given they’re from at least 5 different cameras – and I’ve edited some. So is there something which will check contents of files with duplicated names and preserve both copies if they are different (I should think a file size check would be sufficient, as the chances of two different photos with the same name and exactly the same size is unlikely enough to ignore)?

OS?

I’ve used WinMerge for a similar issue.

I mentioned Windows up there – though I could easily enough fire up Linux if it was easier (I suspect I could do some sort of Bash script). I’ll have a look at WinMerge, thanks.

In Win 10’s copy/paste, you’ll get the option like “rename any that have a duplicate name” and it’ll add a (1) at the end.

Is there any reason you can’t get all photos (still in their dis-organised directories / sub-folders etc) in a single folder. Search for *, then cut-paste all files into a new folder.

If you choose to skip files with duplicate names instead of copying them over then doing another * search will give you only the dupe files. From that, batch-rename them.

Or use a file comparing software.
http://lifehacker.com/the-best-duplicate-file-finder-for-windows-1696492476

“as the chances of two different photos with the same name and exactly the same size is unlikely enough to ignore”

I’d have thought so. I can’t remmeber the program I used, but it could compare but date created AND file size AND filename AND others. I can;t imagine you’d accidentally delete a non-dupe file using those criteria.

Alternatively,

Organize Files Into Folders Automatically Based On Date Created

Automatically move photos to directories or folders based on exif date taken…

Have I isunderstood the issue?

In which case I’d end up with a lot of duplicate files which I don’t want to sort out by hand. Though thanks for all the other ideas – I think there’s something there which will work. Though kind of prompted by Colin last night I think I might drop into Linux and use scripting stuff – apart from anything else I realised I’m also not entirely sure where all the backups are so want to search for files in all locations on all the multiple disks I have, and it’s straightforward to generate a list of locations for a manual search that way. Good point about checking creation dates as well – that should be sufficient to determine identical photos.