Does "by content" mean binary comparison in "Synchronize dir", "File->Compare by content" and "Find"?

[pcitrus]

Hello!
Does "Commands->Synchronize dirs..." + selecting "by content" compare byte by byte, or does it calculate the checksum of each file in the folders and compare them?

What exactly does "by content" mean? Does it mean binary comparison?

Does "File->Compare by content" compare byte by byte or compare the checksums?

In Find duplicate files, if I select "by content", does it compare byte by byte or compare the checksums?

If two files have the same content, but the metadata are different, I still consider them identical because I don't care about the metadata. Does TC think they're the same if compared by content?

I've been using fc.exe /b folder1\* folder2\* to compare folders byte by byte but it cannot go recursively so it's been laborious to do this manually for many folders, and 20 TB of data.

Thank you very much!

[Horst.Epp]

According to Christian's explanation in another thread:
By content compares the first 128kb byte for byte, and stops on mismatch.

Metadata is part of the binary content of a file.
It doesn't care for your personal preferences.

Comparing file without the metadata needs a compare tool
which has format aware plugins for some file types, like Beyond Compare.
Such tools can be integrated into TC using the CompareTool= entry in WinCmd.ini

[pcitrus]

@Horst.Epp Thank you very much for your reply!

Some of my files are 300GB big. Does TC not check the whole contents of the files byte by byte then if it checks only the first 128kb?

[Horst.Epp]

Some of my files are 300GB big. Does TC not check the whole contents of the files byte by byte then if it checks only the first 128kb?

When the first 128kb are identical, the comparison goes on.

[petermad]

Does TC not check the whole contents of the files byte by byte then if it checks only the first 128kb?

I made a test where I changed one of the last bytes in a 285Kb file, and the Sync tool found the files different.

[pcitrus]

@petermad @Horst.Epp
Thank you both so much!

[miskox]

I've been using fc.exe /b folder1\* folder2\* to compare folders byte by byte but it cannot go recursively so it's been laborious to do this manually for many folders, and 20 TB of data.

.bat/.cmd could be used for this task.

Saso