How to compare your server with your local folder

Disk in FTP by Zaweba has a Compare window that sets its scan of the server against your local folder. It sorts every difference into five kinds: only local, only on the server, newer locally, newer on the server and different size. You filter to the kind you care about, then Download ticked, Upload ticked, or Tag on the server to tidy up files that exist only there.

Server and local copies drift apart in ordinary ways. Someone else uploads a fix. A plugin writes files on the server. You edit locally and forget to send one page. After a few months nobody is quite sure which copy is right, and that uncertainty makes every upload a little nervous.

Running a compare

Make sure the site in Site Manager has its local folder set, since that is what the server is compared with. Open Disk from the toolbar or the Site menu and let it scan the server. Then open Compare.

The list shows each file that differs, with the kind of difference, so what you see is the work there is to do.

Reading the five kinds

Only local means the file is on your PC and not on the server. Often it is a new page you never uploaded; sometimes it is a draft or a working file that should never go up.

Only on the server means the opposite. These can be uploads from a contact form, files a content system made, things another person put there, or old leftovers that nobody removed.

Newer locally and newer on the server tell you which side was changed more recently. Newer on the server is the one to look at carefully, because it may be someone else's work that you haven't got yet.

Different size catches files where the times don't tell the story, such as a file saved with different line endings or copied in a way that changed its time.

Acting on the differences

Filter the list by one kind at a time. That keeps each decision simple.

For files newer on the server, tick the ones you want and press Download ticked. For files newer locally or only local that should be live, tick them and press Upload ticked. For files only on the server that look like clutter, Tag on the server marks them in Disk, where you can download a backup, move them or send them to the trash with the usual confirmation.

Keep local history in mind too: FTP by Zaweba keeps the previous version of a file on your PC before a Get overwrites a local copy or a Put overwrites the server copy.

When to use Compare and when to use Sync

FTP by Zaweba also has Site > Sync, which compares the two sides and proposes actions with a reason for each, in one direction or both ways with newer winning, and runs nothing until you press Run. Sync is the everyday tool for keeping a site in step.

Compare in Disk is the investigative one. It sits beside the treemap and the lens, so it suits a tidy up, an audit of a site you have just taken over, or a check before you move a site to new hosting. Its Tag on the server option is the bit Sync doesn't offer: it turns a list of mystery files into something you can clean up safely.

A word on clocks

If a whole batch of files shows as newer on the server by a round number of hours, the server's clock or time zone may differ from your PC's rather than the files really being changed. Different size is a more trustworthy sign of real change in that case. FTP by Zaweba's newer-file warning explains differences like this file by file when you Get or Put, which helps you decide whether to trust what Compare is showing.