I use Ubuntu 12.04 LTS which has Nautilus 3.4. Unfortunately I can't test newer version.

I have several folders with mostly the same content. A few files have been modified in any of them but most files are duplicates. I want to merge the folders with a simple drag and drop in Nautilus.

I expect Nautilus to ask me before overwriting a file when the two files with the same name have a different content. Yet I don't expect a question when the files are identical. Indeed, if the files are duplicates, it makes no differences to overwrite or keep the existing file so no question should be displayed.

For every file with the same name, Nautilus ask whether I want to replace the existing file or to skip copying/moving. It is not practical when there are thousand of duplicates. Even with a few it is not obvious to know if the files differ by a few bytes only (the only the change date may give a hint).

Thus I suggest to silently "overwrite" a file when the source and target files are duplicates.



Note : in the same situation, Windows 8 shows the list of files to be overwritten with a checkbox "skip the xx files with same size and same date". So I would see the following use cases when two files have the same name:

1) The files have different sizes: ask from the user whether to overwrite/rename existing/rename moved file/skip.
2) The files have same size: check for same content (except maybe on remote locations).
3) The files have same content but different dates: guess which date is more probable (probably UTC and current time zone)
4) The files have same content and same date: no need to ask.

The case "same size and same date" used in Windows 8 may loose data if a modification was done without updating the modification date (unlikely but possible).