Comparing 2 folders and saving the paths into a variable? - powershell

Question

I've been given the task of comparing 2 folders, FolderA and FolderB and noting any files that exist in A but not in B.
Sorry for not explaining myself fully. Maybe it would help if I explain our situation. A company sales employee has left our company to go to a competitor. He has files in on his work laptop local hard drive. We are trying to establish if there are any files that exist on his computer but not on the shared network folder.
I need to produce a list of any files (along with their paths) that are present on his laptop but not on the share network location. The file structure between the laptop local hard drive and the shared network location are different. What's the best way to go about this?
$folderAcontent = "C:\temp\test1"
$folderBcontent = "C:\temp\test2"
$FolderAContents = Get-ChildItem $folderAcontent -Recurse | where-object {!$_.PSIsContainer}
$FolderBContents = Get-ChildItem $folderBcontent -Recurse | where-object {!$_.PSIsContainer}
$FolderList = Compare-Object -ReferenceObject ($FolderAContents ) -DifferenceObject ($FolderBContents) -Property name
$FolderList | fl *

Answer 1

Use the compare-Object cmdlet :
Compare-Object (gci $folderAcontent) (gci $folderBcontent)
if you want to list the file that are only in $folderAcontent select the results with the <= SideIndicator :
Compare-Object (gci $folderAcontent) (gci $folderBcontent) | where {$_.SideIndicator -eq "<="}

Answer 2

assuming that the filenames in both the directories are same, you can do something like the following :-
$folderAcontent = "C:\temp\test1"
$folderBcontent = "C:\temp\test2"
ForEach($File in Get-ChildItem -Recurse -LiteralPath $FolderA | where {$_.psIsContainer -eq $false} | Select-Object Name)
{
if(!(Test-Path "$folderBcontent\$File"))
{
write-host "Missing File: $folderBcontent\$File"
}
}
The above will only work for files (not subdirectories) present in folder A

Answer 3

Try:
#Set locations
$laptopfolder = "c:\test1"
$serverfolder = "c:\test2"
#Get contents
$laptopcontents = Get-ChildItem $laptopfolder -Recurse | where {!$_.PSIsContainer}
$servercontents = Get-ChildItem $serverfolder -Recurse | where {!$_.PSIsContainer}
#Compare on name and length and find changed files on laptop
$diff = Compare-Object $laptopcontents $servercontents -Property name, length -PassThru | where {$_.sideindicator -eq "<="}
#Output differences
$diff | Select-Object FullName
If you add lastwritetime after length in the compare-object cmdlet it will compare modified date too(if the file was updated but still same size). Just be aware that it only looks for differnt dates, not if it's newer or older. :)