[Utility] TeraCopy removes the file copy pain from Windows Vista

Last September, I asked why aren't Windows file copies restartable? It's a huge productivity killer - and very frustrating - when you're copying a large file from a network share or over a VPN and the copy fails when it was 80% complete. At that point, your file copy has just failed. Try again and hope it works this time.

And I'm not the first person to notice that  file copying is horribly slow in Windows Vista. To be fair, file copying has been substantially improved in Vista SP1, but it's still not quick.

TeraCopy makes file copies work... and it makes them fun!

Well, as fun as you can have copying files, anyhow...

Back in January, Ralph linked to TeraCopy. I gave it a shot and found that it really did work pretty well. Being difficult, I just had to look around for something else. I tried a bunch of alternatives including Copy Handler and various Robocopy GUI's. TeraCopy's my favorite.

TeraCopy's shell integration into Explorer is really smooth. For instance, I'll select a bunch of big files in one Explorer window and hit control-c, then hit control-v in another Explorer window and TeraCopy's copy dialog pops up. Here we can see the progress of each file as well as the entire group:

TeraCopy

Notice that nice Pause button. Also nice is that, should my VPN drop or the copy fail for any other reason, that button changes to Resume and I can continue the copy from where it left off. Hitting the More button in the lower left expands the dialog to show the complete status of the copy:

TeraCopy-More

The latest official release of TeraCopy is 1.22, although there is a TeraCopy 2 beta release available which adds some nice new features - it's nice to use a product that's under pretty active development. I've been really happy with TeraCopy - give it a shot!

11 Comments

  • Whats wrong with just using robocopy? Why the need for a gui?

  • @Eddie It's not just the GUI, it's the shell integration. If you want to type your robocopy command every time you copy a file, knock yourself out. I tried it for a while and it got pretty old. I like robocopy for scripts, but it's not very practical for day to day file copying.

  • If you want efficiency you can't beat Total Commander. Once you're used to it using the keyboard, by the time you move your hand to grab the mouse I already selected the files I want, started the copy file and I'm on my way to doing other things. They should really make a video about it...

  • Jon,

    A few weeks back, I ran into an XP SP2 error "Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service" while trying to copy my large VHD file from one drive to the other. Installing Terra copy helped in copying the file.

    Raj

  • @Josh
    Windows XP file copy doesn't restart or pause the copy process, either. I'm writing about Windows Vista because it's the current version of Windows. Vista's file copy was pretty slow before SP1, but that's mostly fixed in Vista. I'm not writing about XP because I'm not writing about any software that's 7 years old, be it IE6, .NET 1.0, etc.

    You haven't tried Vista? Your uninformed criticism is not all that valuable, is it?

  • Paid for and downloaded Teracopy 1.22 and very disappointed. It averages 500Mb per HOUR to a Snap drive. (drag and drop did 8Gb in 45mins) Maybe drive to drive would be faster but not over the ethernet. Also it boasts to continue after any file discrepancy. But even after opting for "skip all" it stopped on a duplicate file. Very frustrating after leaving it run for 24 hours and only 5% copied.
    Lastly, sent email for tech support and no response after more than a week.

  • I am looking for (or wondering why MS has not included this in their Vista OS) a utility to manage specific folders and sub-folders that will not allow duplicate files (exact bit compare, not just file names)to be copied into the folder or it's sub-folders.

    It would have to manage the designated folders and keep a checksum and other info about each file in a database. When ever a file is copied, it checks for a duplicate and either warns with options or defaults to put a shortcut to the file rather than copy in the duplicate.

    I have thousands of .jpg files on thousands of folders from 10 years of computing, moving from old to new PCs, creating backup or temporary folders, etc with many files now residing in numerous folders many with different names only. To manually clean it up would take months. A utility or "filter" put on a folder and sub folders to restrict duplicates would be an awesome addition. Maybe one already exists out there?

  • i was trying to move a directory, and xp kept stopping the copy at "file not found". teracopy took a lot longer than normal on that directory, but got the job done nicely.

    cheers. many thanks for recommending.

  • I also ran into the XP error "Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service" when copying ISO files (same with many large files.) Tried Teracopy, worked for 20 minutes then failed each copy with the same error. Used RichCopy so you can turn of buffering and use sequential access - THE BEST!

  • @Josh
    If you want to move those larger files 4x times faster than by using xcopy, yeah you will need to..
    If you want an resume option upon network loss while doing transfers to other machines, yeah you will need to..
    If you want CRC check upon copying/moving files... you will need to..

    @Terable
    You didn't read the tekstfiles that ship with TeraCopy, else you would have known how to turn of the buffer.

  • I love Teracopy - It does what it says on the tin.

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