2 useful tools no editor should be without

There’s two great types of utilities that no editor should be without. An editor will often have to keep thousands of files across multiple removable hard drives so these two useful tools come in handy an awful lot. I’m not saying you have to have these specific tools but at least have something that serves these functions. One should be an application that can catalog the contents of a hard drives and then allow the user to browse those drives when they are not mounted. Second is something to sync the contents of different folders or hard drives. These are the ones I use.

First there is Catalog. Catalog will scan a hard drive and build a searchable database, complete with folder structures and icons. One reason I say you don’t have to have these specific tools just have one like them is that it seems that Catalog’s developer Neometrics Software might not be around anymore. Their website has been offline for a while so as of this writing you can’t download Catalog from Versiontracker.  There are some other alternatives like Discalog or Haxial DiskCatalog. I haven’t tried these but from the descriptions they look like they should be a good alternative to Catalog. If you know of any other good cataloging utilities (or what happened to Neometrics Software) please comment below. There’s nothing any less fun than plugging up and mounting firewire drive after firewire drive so a good catalog utility can make this a thing of the past.

The second utility every editor needs is something to syncronize files, folders and disks. I use File Synchronization. It does just that, synchronizes files. From the developers website:

• Automatically mounts remote volumes in the background when needed.
• Preview mode lets you “see” what will happen.
• Preview mode allows for managing files that need to be synchronized.
• Optional logging of all operations.
• Multithreaded for smooth operation even when copying hundreds of megabytes.
• No document to open or manage: all files and folders and their settings are
  automatically saved and accessible through the main window.
• Filters lets you ignore some files and/or folders that you don’t want to synchronize.
• Automatic synchronization: you select the interval and the pairs and File Synchronization will synchronize them repeatedly according to the time interval.
• Option to move orphaned files to the trash instead of deleting them.
• Option to keep orphaned files that have been modified since the last synchronization.
• Option to delete unwanted files from the preview window.

And there’s a lot more. It’s one of those utilities that I pop open on a regular basis to handle some of those boring tasks. Know of any other good file sync tools? If so please comment below and let us all know what you might use to acomplish these housekeeping chores. We’ve all got to do ’em so the easier and quicker we get the tasks done the better.