If the "Add folders" option is on, WinCatalog will add folders to the catalog. If this option is off, WinCatalog will not add folders and files to the catalog.
If the "Add files" option is on, WinCatalog will add files to the catalog.
Configure here what content will be excluded from the scanning.
Do not add hidden files and folder to the catalog - if this option is on, hidden files and folder will not be added to the catalog.
Do not add system files and folders to the catalog - if this option is on, system files and folders will not be added to the catalog.
Do not scan and add the Recycle Bin folder - if this option is on, WinCatalog will not scan inside the Recycle Bin folder and will not add it to the catalog. It is recommended to keep this option on, especially if you catalog a system drive.
Exclude files and folders from scanning by mask - if this option is on, WinCatalog will test each file and folder it finds on the disk and if it matches the provided pattern, it will be skipped (i.e. it will not be added to the catalog). Please note that WinCatalog uses the filename (or a folder name) for testing, not the full path to the file. To modify the list of masks, please click the ellipsis button [...] next to the field.
Configure here how WinCatalog will update a disk or a folder.
While updating a disk or a folder: skip unmodified files (speeds up the update process). If this option is on, during the update process, WinCatalog will skip all the files that were not modified since a previous scan or update. WinCatalog checks the file size and last modified date to decide if the file was modified or not. Please note that if you changed some processing options (on the File processing tab), for example, if you changed the size for the picture thumbnails, WinCatalog will not update the thumbnails for not modified pictures if this option is turned on. Please turn it off for the updating session. Please don't forget to turn it back on for the future updates.
Keep comments on update (do not overwrite non-empty comments). If this option is on, WinCatalog will never overwrite the non-empty comments. For example, WinCatalog may store parts of text files in the comments, but if this option is enabled WinCatalog will not update comments even if the file contents is changed.
Display the Update Report every time the update process is complete. If this option is on, WinCatalog will display the update report after each updating process where it will show all the added, deleted and updated items.
Configure here what should WinCatalog do when the scanning or updating process ends. It can Eject the removable media (if possible). The option to play sound when the process ends was removed from WinCatalog since the 2021.1 version.
For every file WinCatalog can calculate a checksum or a hash. Currently 3 different options are available: calculate CRC32 checksum, MD5 (the fastest one), and SHA256 (the slowest). You can also exclude small or large files from the calculation by turning the "Do not calc MD5/SHA/CRC32 for files smaller than" and "Do not calc MD5/SHA/CRC32 for files larger than" options on.
Do not display the total number of files to scan in the progress dialog (scans faster). If this option is on, WinCatalog will not calculate the number of files it has to scan. WinCatalog never calculates this number for optical drives, but you can also turn it off for hard drives (turning this option on has sense for slow drives).
External plugins file processing timeout. The number of seconds WinCatalog should wait until a processing module grabs an additional info about a file. The default value is 10 seconds per a file, but for optical drives WinCatalog multiplies this value by 3 (so, for the optical drives, the default value is 30 seconds per a file).
