6
exerceo
308d

Moving files is emotionally easier than copying and deleting files, and moving eliminates the risk of selecting the wrong files at the deletion part.

I have read that it is safer to manually copy and manually delete files rather than to move it, but copying and deleting has a hidden risk that was not mentioned: selecting the wrong files for deletion.

Moving files feels like moving an obstacle from one room to another. The deletion part of copying and deleting feels like destroying something, which is an added emotional barrier.

Technically, copying and deleting is safer, since there is no risk of source files being deleted without having been transferred as a result of a device disconnecting or the buggy media transfer protocol (MTP) failing to load the entire file list. However, on mass storage devices, this pretty much never happened to me, and on MTP, data loss can be avoided by not moving folders but opening the source folders and selecting all files and moving those out. This prevents a parent folder with incompletely loaded file listing from being deleted.

However, something that is not considered about copying and deleting is that the risk of selecting the wrong files in the deletion step exists. One might end up selecting files that were never copied.

Not only is moving straightforward and time-saving, but it has no emotional barrier and the risk of selecting the wrong files to delete from the source is eliminated, since a proper file manager like Nemo or Windows Explorer (mass storage only, not MTP) only deletes a moved file from the source after it has been properly transferred. The user does not need to pay attention to select the correct files to delete, since the file manager already did it.

Comments
  • 2
    I'm pretty sure the practice of copy+delete has been adopted in the context of file managers where the source set remains selected such as Midnight Commander or a pair of Windows Explorer windows.

    In such an environment, the risk does not exist, and it's well known that mc and windows power users either have no emotional barriers or have great experience at breaking them down.
  • 1
    Could Alias mv to copy the file to the destination and delete the original file
  • 1
    @DeepHotel The "mv" tool already copies and deletes files automatically when moving between devices or partition. That's how moving always worked.

    Moving within the same file system only changes the file paths. That's like renaming. The benefit is that it nearly finishes instantaneously.
  • 0
    @Nanos MTP is Media Transfer Protocol. It is used by computers to access mobile phone storage through a USB cable.

    Sadly, it is bug-ridden.
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