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I'm backing up my documents, including a small Truecrypt container (.tc file). When I mount the Truecrypt countainer and modify files inside it, it does not change the file size or the date/time modified (or any other timestamps). It seems that Robocopy is using these conditions to skip the file without doing any byte comparison of the files.

Is there a way to force Robocopy to do a byte-for-byte file comparison? Or a viable workaround?

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  • Presumably you use Robocopy as part of a batch command file?
    – Dave White
    Commented Dec 13, 2020 at 14:04
  • @DaveWhite Yeah. As a workaround, I've updated my batch script to manually copy those files after Robocopy has run.
    – Jim
    Commented Dec 14, 2020 at 15:03
  • I'm in a similar situation, although I also back my files including a TC container on OneDrive. One workaround is what you suggested, useful if the TC contents change frequently. The other workaround is to have a batch file "touch" the TC container with current timestamp when its contents change, I find this is more useful if the contents don't change that often, and it saves the unnecessary backup of that file. I created a batch file with command copy /b <filename>+ which does the job. You have to manually launch the batch file to update the date but I prefer it
    – Dave White
    Commented Dec 14, 2020 at 18:20
  • @DaveWhite If you want a fix that's specific for VeraCrypt (and maybe TC) then there an option you can set for it to not preserve the file timestamps. In VeraCrypt > Settings > Preferences > "Preserve modification timestamp of file containers". Unticking this will update the timestamp whenever the container is modified. I had hoped for a Robocopy setting because I was worried I might miss other files due to this timestamp comparison behaviour. But in the end I just run a diff on the backups every so often to confirm all files are there.
    – Jim
    Commented Dec 15, 2020 at 21:39
  • Thanks Jim but that option applies to all encrypted containers, which is not a good fit. They should consider making that option container-specific.
    – Dave White
    Commented Dec 16, 2020 at 7:51

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