triplecheck

triplecheck is a two- and three-way file and directory comparison tool:

• For files it compares their hashes.
• For directories, it either compares the hashes of every file (full comparison mode), or compares file names and sizes (default). And it contains an optional -i flag to ignore folder structure and focus exclusively on files (useful if directories have been nested, moved around or renamed in one of your copies).

Two hash functions are available: xxhash for high-throughput and blake3 for cryptographic hashing.

🚀 Installation

1. Install the uv package manager with the official installer, or:

• macOS: brew install uv
• Windows: winget install astral-sh.uv
• Linux (Debian): apt-get install uv

2. Install the tool:

uv tool install triplecheck

3. Test the installation (if the command is not recognised try uv tool update-shell and restart Terminal):

triplecheck --version

📖 Usage examples

Compare two files:

triplecheck "path/to/file1" "path/to/file2"

Compare two (or three) directories:

triplecheck "path/to/dir1" "path/to/dir2" "path/to/dir3"            # metadata-only comparison (filenames and file sizes)
triplecheck -f "path/to/dir1" "path/to/dir2"                        # full  comparison: hash every file
triplecheck -i "path/to/dir1" "path/to/dir2"                        # ignore folder structure
triplecheck -e "*.mhl" -e "*.txt" "path/to/dir1" "path/to/dir2"     # exclude .mhl and .txt files

Compare two (or three) directories on different machines:

triplecheck --molist "path/to/local/dir1"                           # creates "molist_dir1.tsv"
triplecheck --molist "path/to/remote/dir2"                          # creates "molist_dir2.tsv"
triplecheck --mocompare "molist_dir1.tsv" "molist_dir2.tsv"

Check that the destination contains all of the files from the source

triplecheck --diff "path/to/src" "path/to/dst" | grep "<"

Output is composed of pairs or triads representing the relationship between the paths (<, > and >> represent the paths provided). In the example below IMG_0421.mov exists only in PRJ_MST01, while IMG_0422.mov exists everywhere but the copy on PRJ_BAK02 is different to the others.

$ triplecheck /Volumes/PRJ_MST01 /Volumes/PRJ_BAK01 /Volumes/PRJ_BAK02
<  ∃ IMG_0421.mov
>  ∄ IMG_0421.mov
>> ∄ IMG_0421.mov

<  = IMG_0422.mov
>  = IMG_0422.mov
>> ≠ IMG_0422.mov

Two-way comparison with --diff offers an alternative output format for those familiar with diff. Lines starting with < are unique to the first path, > lines are unique to the second path:

$ triplecheck --diff /Volumes/PRJ_MST01 /Volumes/PRJ_BAK01
< IMG_0421.mov
> IMG_0422.mov

Run triplecheck --help to see the full list of options.

🤝 Acknowledgments

A special thank you to Mohammad Ayyash for initiating me into the dark magic of Python and Bash, and writing the first "molist" commands from which this utility evolved.