The Copy file function, and APFS Cloning

Hi,

I'm just re-starting my investigations of some workflow automation, specifically when a bunch of files, pictures and video are added to a directory, the workflow sorts them into subfolders for year / month / day, but then I want it to subsequently get all the video files from the import, and copy them to a different folder on the same volume.

As I understand it, with APFS, file duplicates within the volume don't create a new file, but rather produce something more like a symlink to the original, which becomes progressively a gestalt of the original and its modifications, as it's worked on subsequent to the copy.

Presumably then, if the copy is never worked on, is just a dead duplicate, it should effectively not take up significant extra space on disk.

Does Hazel's copy function work within this framework, or am I going to end up with a video file folder that balloons my storage requirements by having full size duplicates of each video file?

APFS does copy on write which means it doesn't copy anything until it is changed. Hazel does try to do copies this way but you have to make sure the copies are on the same volume. If you copy between volumes, then real copies have to be made.

Cool, thanks