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There should be another way to handle existing files, more like in Windows Vista/Seven - I mean, when we are copying files and part of them are already existing in the destination directory, it should firstly process ones which are not in it, then ask the user about files which are already in the destination folder...
And any unsuccessfull action (which throws a dialog like "the file couldn't be copied", very often when we are copying files via Dolphin to an unstable FTP server) they should be handled after the overwriting existing files was finished, and ALSO provide new buttons "Retry" and "Retry All", not only "Ignore", "Ignore All", "Cancel".
This tweaks will save the users time, when someone begins copying a big amount of files, goes away from the computer, and then sees that only 5% was copied in an hour because of a dialog prompting overwriting a file or notifying that one small unneeded file wasn't copied...

More clarification - the lifespan:
1. We begin copying 100 files.
2. Oups, File number 3 exists already - adding to "existing files" queue and process the next files
3. File number 15 also exists - appending to the "existing files" queue, process next files
4. File number 45 operation failed - adding it to a "failed" queue, process next files
5. File 95 operation failed - appending to the "Failed" queue, process next files
6. File number 98 also exists - appending to the "existing files" queue, process next files
7. Everything else copied, throw a dialog "Some files already exists" (show the number of files in the "existing files" queue), "Overwrite one" (first file name in the queue), "Overwrite all, Ignore one, Ignore All"
NOTE: before step 7 we already are on 95% completed! Instead now, we would be at 3% only!
8. Copy these files according to the user selection
9. Oups, file 98 failed to copy! - Adding to the "Failed" queue
10. the queue "existing files" was processed, now throw the dialog "Oups, some files couldn't be copied" 9the number of files in the "Failed" queue and the first filename in this queue) "Wat would you like? Retry, Retry All, Ignore, Abort"
11. The user selects to retry - if it fails again it should create a new "failed queue" and begin again from 9, until it is successful or until the user aborts.

A note about step 10 - we don't need the "Ignore all" action here because there won't be any action after ignoring all the files in the "Failed" queue, so it would be the same as "Abort"

Another possibility is to show the dialog of the error or/and overwrite process but STILL continue copying files which are possible to copy...

Evengard - That wouldn't work too well if you've got say, 20 files that already exist; you'd 20 popups on top of each other.

+1 for the original idea, but wouldn't it be better to show dialogue before it starts copying?

Scnd101
It can also be like a queue, it is updating the only one popup window saying "The files foo.bar and 12 other files already exists bla bla", then "13 files", then "14 files" ... etc
Showing the dialog before copying can slow down the beginning of the copy process - It would be checking for all files - not very practical when we have 1000 small files... And by this way it just puts all these files in a queue - so no need to perform a check before that...

Yeah, I'm aware it might be a little inefficient. But if the dialog is displayed after the transfer then this brings the same problem as the current solution, say you're copying 1000 files and only half succeeded. You'd get a dialog halfway through asking you whether to overwrite, halting the transfer.

It is better than 15% for example... In any way there would be some kind of inefficiency, this idea is just a way to make it smaller.
This is just I think that checking all files is also a very slow operation (for example, in Vista it is kinda slow, and with the IO scheduler problems of Linux kernels this can take some time - so the user could go away before he see the dialog - resulting in 0% of files copied)
Now we have 3 possibility of implementation:
1. The original idea
2. My second idea
3. Scnd101 idea
So we can choose which one should be implemented

In my opinion it would be better to handle this with threading. So you start off with one thread. If there is a duplicate file, it is passed to a second thread that keeps track of all the duplicate files (but only displays one at at time) while the first thread keeps running. As the first thread runs into more duplicates it add them to the list being used by the second thread. Similarly, errors are added to a third thread that displays a list of errors at the end. But there is already a bugs.kde.org idea about this.

2 TheBlackCat - it is exactly my second idea! Even more, I think that the number of dupes and errors should be displayed in the notification window along with the copy process - adding new buttons to directly execute actions in the thread without waiting the first thread complete... And if the user haven't taken any action until the first thread is completed - only then display the popup window. And yes, if there is a such bug, just post a link here

great idea, it could be nice also to have the option to authenticate in case of permissions problem.
there is such idea posted somewhere here but it is about authenticating the entire dolphin session and not the single/several file(s) operation.
brainstorm.php?mode=idea&i=85666#p148564

Actually, I know - because it is also my idea )))
And I agree with your idea - it would be great