Comparing Richcopy and Robocopy is like comparing identical twin brothers. They look alike, act alike, and perform the same duties. Richcopy has been around for a while now (since 1982), but it is not as advanced as its younger brother Robocopy.

Robocopy was created in 2006 because Richcopy lacked features that were needed to meet the modern-day demands of IT professionals. The working of Richcopy and Robocopy is almost the same; the only difference lies in the fact that Robocopy has much more advanced features when compared to Richcopy, such as copying files on different volumes or copying directories with specific permissions sets.

Read through this article as we will be reviewing and comparing Richcopy and Robocopy to see which one is the best, most useful, and is suitable for you.

About Richcopy

Richcopy is an application that Ken Tamaru of Microsoft Corporation developed. It works with Windows and copies files from one drive to another without altering the timestamps or permissions. Richcopy relies on a file list (which has a source, destination, and command) to copy directories or folders instead of using wildcards as Robocopy does.

Richcopy Features

  • Multithreaded copy
  • Pause/restart
  • Granular control
  • Timer
  • Purge original
  • Move
  • Destination check
  • Profiles
  • File exclusion/inclusion
  • FTP copy
  • Command-line options

You can download the Richcopy installation file for Microsoft here.

About Robocopy

Robocopy, which stands for “Robust File Copy,” is a Microsoft Windows command-line directory and/or file replication command. Robocopy is a more powerful version of Richcopy. It was developed by Kevin Allen and was first included in the Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit. It has been a standard feature of Windows since Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

It’s evident that Richcopy and Robocopy are both outstanding applications for handling data transfers; however, Richcopy lacks some of the more valuable features present in Robocopy, which makes Robocopy better suited for IT professionals who need these additional tools. The only downside to using Robcoypy is just how time-consuming it can be when copying files.

Robocopy Features

  • Robocopy can continue copying files if it gets interrupted by a network problem. It remembers where the copy stopped and begins again when the network is back up.
  • This program can skip sections of the NTFS file system. This is helpful because it can avoid file copying failures.
  • The ability to skip files that are identical in size and timestamp in the destination folder.
  • A command-line progress indicator that is constantly updated.
  • Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 introduced multithreaded copying.
  • Capability to copy paths longer than 259 characters without error up to a theoretical limit of about 32,000 characters.

You can download the Robocopy installation file for Microsoft here.

Summary

All in all, Robocopy is the winner of this debate on which tool is the best file copying tool.

If you’re the type that regularly has to copy large amounts of data, we strongly suggest you give RoboCopy a try. It has been tested severally on Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10.

Make sure to share this piece of information with anyone else that might need it.

Last Updated on July 7, 2021 by RichTechy

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