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On Windows, I use TeraCopy for improved file copying. Are there any similar equivalents for OS X?

In particular, I'd like to see things like copy speed.

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If you can treat the Mac drive as an external drive, like a NAS, and do the copy from a windows machine, file pilot copy would work for you. They have a free “no registration required” eval download at filepilotsoftware.com . It is super fast, particularly for update copies, and has an easy to use GUI interface (but can also be run in a batch mode like a script). – user10819 Sep 8 '11 at 18:45
Doesn't osx's own copier do just that? – user27889 Aug 22 '12 at 23:14
@foley do just what? afaik, it just shows you a progress bar. teracopy has considerably more features. – Ian Aug 23 '12 at 5:49
If you would list the specific features past a progress bar and time estimate, people here might have more suggestions. Are you still looking for a solution? – bmike♦ Feb 20 at 14:58

7 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

I looked around for something like TeraCopy a while back but everything I found was pretty horrid. In the end I decided to just use cp and rsync on the command line.

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aha, that makes sense. – Ian Nov 28 '10 at 22:17
up vote 4 down vote

Since you mentioned “better” and in particular “copy speed”, I believe the only answer is Xfile. Other than that, nothing will beat cp ;)

The world’s fastest file manager for OS X

It’s not free, quite the contrary.

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XFile also crashes a lot, and is not particularly fast at all, at least in my experience. – Fake Name Aug 23 '11 at 5:18
up vote 3 down vote

Try Ultracopier, looks a bit like TeraCopy and works on Mac & PC

About copy speed, all is same for the big file. Ultracopier (my software) is better for small file. But warning, I have this this big performance mistake:

  • All copy small file from network from into 3s but 1min42s for Teracopy
  • All copy big file from network from into 1min20s but 2min47s for Copyhandler
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up vote 3 down vote

The best suggestions from this thread are:

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up vote 2 down vote

While much more than just a copy utility, Pathfinder shows copy speed. Along with Launchbar, it's one of my must have utilities.

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This is the most useful answer of all – Nikita Volkov Feb 20 at 14:42
up vote 1 down vote

Have you first compared speeds between TeraCopy and the built in Mac OS X file copy? I hate to sound like a generic condescending Mac user, but what exactly is wrong with the built in one?

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I would like to compare speeds, but the built in one does not tell me the copy speed. Unless there is a way? – Ian Nov 30 '10 at 9:37
With maths...? Find a folder of weighty size (or a large file, but you'll get different results for one vs many files) and find out its size. Time how long it takes to copy. Divide size by time it took to copy, and you'll get the average speed. – Tim Dec 1 '10 at 0:38
It would be nice if the UI would simply display the copy rate, as opposed to me having to do division. Because I'm lazy. :) – Ian Dec 1 '10 at 7:53
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Or you can install iStat (bjango.com/mac/istatmenus) and see the disk throughput in a nice graph/number… – Martín Marconcini Dec 1 '10 at 11:44
Thanks, that's handy. – Ian Dec 1 '10 at 20:19
up vote 1 down vote

An app I developed, Ultracopier, fits your use case.

Here is a YouTube demo showcasing the PC version in action.

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