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I found this question already, which has a lot of good answers, but as far as I can tell none of the programs listed compare only the filenames. What program can I use to compare two directories and list which files only exist in one or other directory?

I would strongly prefer a GUI, but I'm quite capable of using command line if I must.

Additional Info

I have a lot of files (in the range of 125,000+ per directory), so the tool MUST NOT compare the contents of the files, only the filenames, or it'll take forever.

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  • see also on StackOverflow and also on SuperUser Oct 14, 2014 at 12:39
  • @KasiyA The SO link: diff always checks inside files, even with the -q switch. The SU link: Yes, I found that and tried it as per my comment on my accepted answer :)
    – Clonkex
    Oct 14, 2014 at 12:47
  • I tested them both of them are correct but in SU you need to change dto f ;) Oct 14, 2014 at 13:12
  • @KasiyA Yup, that or remove the type switch altogether (which is what I did).
    – Clonkex
    Oct 15, 2014 at 0:06

3 Answers 3

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I would use a simple method, install the tree command:

sudo apt-get install tree

Run the following commands in a terminal:

tree folderA > folderA.txt
tree folderB > folderB.txt

Then use a GUI diff tool such as meld to compare both listings.

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  • 1
    Good suggestion, thanks. I'm currently running through another potential solution I found that may or may not work - if it doesn't, I'll try your method. I'll answer my own question if my current method works satisfactorily.
    – Clonkex
    Oct 14, 2014 at 11:29
  • I tried this method. It worked, but produced a less-than-ideal output. Then I tried your method. A+ works perfectly! Thankyou!
    – Clonkex
    Oct 14, 2014 at 11:43
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You can try dupeGuru

dupeGuru is a tool to find duplicate files on your computer. It can scan either filenames or contents. The filename scan features a fuzzy matching algorithm that can find duplicate filenames even when they are not exactly the same.dupeGuru

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  • Can it list the opposite? That is, can it list files that are not the same? I don't want to know which files are the same, rather which are different.
    – Clonkex
    Oct 14, 2014 at 11:25
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    I don't think that it will do that. For that you may want to take a look at filecmp
    – Mitch
    Oct 14, 2014 at 11:34
  • Thanks, I'll bear that in mind, but I'd prefer not to have to write a Python script.
    – Clonkex
    Oct 14, 2014 at 11:39
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Gnome Commander has a built-in feature of Compare Directories (shortcut Shift+F2).

The different files are marked after comparison (red in the screenshot).

See screenshot: enter image description here

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