I have a 4 TB hard drive containing pictures, sounds, and videos from the last 15 years. These files were copied onto this drive from various sources, including hard drives, cameras, phones, CD-ROMs, DVDs, USB sticks, SD cards, and downloads.
The files come in formats such as JPEG, PNG, GIF, SVG, VOB, MP4, MPEG, MOV, AVI, SWF, WMV, FLV, 3GP, WAV, WMA, AAC, and OGG. Over the years, the files have been copied back and forth between different file systems, including FAT, exFAT, NTFS, HFS+/APFS, and ext3/ext4. Currently, the hard drive uses the ext4 file system. There are folders and files that appear multiple times (duplicates, triplicates, or even more).
The problem is that the folder and filenames are not always identical.
For example:
A folder named "bilder_2012" might appear elsewhere as "backup_bilder_2012" or "media_2012_backup_2016".
In some cases, newer folders contain additional files that were not present in the older versions.
The files themselves may have inconsistent names, such as "bild1", "bild2" in one folder and "bilder2018(1)", "bilder2018(2)" in another.
What I Want to Achieve:
Sort and clean up the files and Remove all duplicates and copy the remaining files to a new hard drive.
Identify the original copies and Is there a way to determine which version of a file is the earliest/original?
Preserve the original folder names and For example, I know that "bilder_2012" was the first name given to a folder, and I like to keep that name if possible.
Standardize file naming and After copying, I like the files to follow a consistent naming scheme, such as. Folder: "bilder2012" and Files: "bilder2012(1).jpeg", "bilder2012(2).jpeg", etc.
Is there a way to automate this process while ensuring the oldest/original files are preserved and duplicates are safely removed?
