Copy all files from one place to another, recursively, sleeping between runs

Instructions.md

1. Download the above file and save it somewhere (eg ~/Downloads)
2. Open Terminal.app, and go to where it's saved (eg cd ~/Downloads)
3. Run the script, with the HDD volume as the first argument, eg: python sleep-and-copy.py /Volumes/Thing/Path/to/itunes /Library/Local-path-to-itunes

sleep-and-copy.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

import os
import sys
import time
import shutil

SLEEP_TIME = 3

def recursive_copy_and_sleep(source_folder, destination_folder):
    "Copies files from `SOURCE` one at a time to `TARGET`, sleeping in between operations"

    for root, dirs, files in os.walk(source_folder):
        for item in files:
            src_path = os.path.join(root, item)
            dst_path = os.path.join(destination_folder, src_path.replace(source_folder, "")[1:])
            time.sleep(SLEEP_TIME)
            if os.path.exists(dst_path):
                if os.stat(src_path).st_mtime > os.stat(dst_path).st_mtime:
                    print "Copying %s to %s" % (src_path, dst_path)
                    shutil.copy2(src_path, dst_path)
            else:
                print "Copying %s to %s" % (src_path, dst_path)
                shutil.copy2(src_path, dst_path)

        for item in dirs:
            src_path = os.path.join(root, item)
            dst_path = os.path.join(destination_folder, src_path.replace(source_folder, "")[1:]) # Lop off leading slash, otherwise the directory maker gets confused
            if not os.path.exists(dst_path):
                print "Making %s" % dst_path
                os.mkdir(dst_path) #
    return True

def main():
    if len(sys.argv) != 3:
        print "ERROR:\n\tPlease pass source and target directories, eg:\n\t%s /start/here /finish/here" % sys.argv[0]
        sys.exit(1)
    (source, target) = sys.argv[1:]

    if os.path.exists(source) and os.path.exists(target):
        recursive_copy_and_sleep(source, target)
        sys.exit(0)

    print "ERROR: invalid directories passed"
    sys.exit(1)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()