Bug 412664

Summary: Incrementally create and delete folder structures when doing a recursive copy
Product: [Frameworks and Libraries] frameworks-kio Reporter: Gregor Mi <codestruct>
Component: generalAssignee: KIO Bugs <kio-bugs-null>
Status: CONFIRMED ---    
Severity: minor CC: a.samirh78, bugseforuns, kdelibs-bugs-null, nate
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 5.60.0   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Gregor Mi 2019-10-06 11:34:21 UTC 
Recently, I guided an occasional Plasma user when she wanted to sort out which of here files were already copied to an external USB drive and which ones were newer or missing. The following is one of the findings for potential improvement.

We started a move operation of a folder structure from hard drive to USB drive. The process took a while. The following was cause for confusion:

1. On the destination, the folder structure was created first and then, one by one the folders were filled with the files.

2. On the source folder, a folder which was already empty, did not disappear at once. The whole folder structure remaines until the process is complete.

The problem was: we _interrupted_ the move operation (deliberately, because of some panic). Which left us going through all the mostly empty folders looking which files were already moved and which not.

SUGGESTION:

1. Create folders on the destination only then, when files will be copied into it.

2. Delete folder from the source as soon as all files are moved out.
Comment 1 Ahmad Samir 2019-11-19 13:03:54 UTC 
IMHO, I'd never use "move" for such cases; rather copy, verify the copy worked, then delete the original files.
Comment 2 Nate Graham 2019-11-19 14:50:01 UTC 
I think the point is that a user should be able to trust the system to perform the mode correctly such that those kinds of manual verification steps would not feel necessary.