Help · Merge
The Merge screen combines any number of folders and drives into a single de-duplicated, organized library. This page explains each step, the four kinds of thing the review list sorts your files into, and what is happening to the originals while it runs.
Copy is the recommended mode and leaves every source folder untouched — the merged library is built at the destination out of copies. Move frees the space on the sources and is fully undoable from the merge summary.
Nothing is deleted during a merge. Files you choose to skip simply stay where they are, and a merge report is written into the destination so you can see afterwards what came from where.
Add Another SourceFree
Add as many folders and drives as the library is spread across — an old backup, a phone dump, a Google Takeout export, the Pictures folder nobody has opened in years. They can be different shapes; that is the point of merging rather than copying by hand.
DestinationFree
Where the single clean library is built. It must not be inside one of the sources. If you are merging four drives into one, this is the drive that needs the space for the survivors.
Copy (recommended) or MoveFree
Copy leaves every source exactly as it was — the safest way to merge, and the one to use when the sources are old backups you are not ready to disturb. Move frees the space on them, and is undoable from the merge summary.
Folder StructureYear / Month is free
The merged library is not a pile: it is written into the same date and camera templates the Organize screen uses. Several drives with several different folder conventions come out as one tree.
The scan sorts everything it found into four kinds, and each one is yours to accept or override before a single file is written.
Exact copiesFree
Byte-for-byte identical. One is kept, the rest are skipped. This is the category that makes a merge of overlapping backups shrink rather than double.
Similar photosFree
Same picture, different file — a resized copy, a re-compressed one, a version some app re-saved. FolioSort marks the best copy as the keeper and you can flip any of it with KEEP and SKIP.
Screenshots and blurry photosFree
Screen captures and out-of-focus frames are suggested for skipping, not removed. Keep any you want anyway — a screenshot of a boarding pass from a trip you care about is not rubbish just because it is a screenshot.
Accept All Suggestions · Keep AllFree
Takes every suggestion at once, or none of them. On a first merge of drives you do not know well, Keep All and a look through the review list is the cautious path, and it costs only disk space.
The merge reportFree
Saved into the destination folder: what was copied, what was skipped and why. It is a plain file you can keep — six months later it is the only record of what that pile of drives actually contained.
Clean Up Duplicate CopiesPro
Offered at the end for copies that survived into the destination. It moves them to the Trash, with the same confirmation and the same undo as the Duplicates screen.
The destination has fewer files than the sources added up
That is usually the merge working. Overlapping backups contain the same photos several times, and exact copies are kept once. The merge report lists every file that was skipped and why.
A source drive was disconnected halfway
The run stops and tells you. Nothing at the destination is corrupted — files already written are complete and verified. Reconnect the drive and run the merge again; what is already there is recognised and skipped.