FreeFileSync Forum

Hello, is there a way to set the policy to only one user? I have to create the gpedit settings as administrator an when I lo off it starts the sync, when now the normal user tries to sync he cant write because the folder permissions on the target changed :( Are you using Computer Shutdown scripts? ...

Hello Bryan, thnx for the tip. It now syncs at logoff, but windows killed the sync at some point. Can I somewhere define when windows shuts down a process that is running at logoff? greetings You can delay the time for windows to wait for tasks on shutdown: http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips...

Hello, since im normaly a linux guy I would like to now a way to sync a windows folder at logout/shutdown. I tried to create a task, but there I can only select "at login" not logout. how to do this? thnx Look into local Group Policies - there is an option for running scripts at logout.

It would appear that variables in batch work for <FolderPairs>, but not for <BatchConfig>? I have this snippet: <FolderPairs> <Pair> <Left>\\openfiler\music\Collection\iTunes</Left> <Right>%SOURCE%\iTunes</Right> </Pair> </FolderPairs> <ExecuteWhenFinished/> </MainConfig> <BatchConfig> <ShowProgress...

Disregard. Maybe I made the FileTimeTolerance value while the GUI was open. I
ensured that the entry in the .XML was saved without FFS being open, and it
now appears to be working properly.

Shown below, I'm comparing 2 directories that have already been sync'd, so there should be very few files to mirror from the source to the destination, but the compare looks like it wants to recopy all files. I've even tried adding <FileTimeTolerance>2000000</FileTimeTolerance> to the GlobalSettings...

Once again, I find the need to do a Mirror job, but without move detection (like is available for Automatic), the job can be excessively large for no good reason because folders have been moved. The job is syncing a music library from a network source to a local drive. As a music library can be quit...

So that's a "No" for enabling move detection for Mirror?

??? I have a source I deem the master that I want to mirror to the target, but
the source would like have moved files. With mirror today, that would mean
deleting from the target, then doing a new copy of files that had already
existed on the target but in a different location, right?

In an attempt to accommodate not having move detection for the Mirror variant, I thought I might be able to use environment variables in my gui/batch settings to define the variant as either Automatic or Mirror - I found that I cannot. Would it be possible to allow for a vairant variable? <SyncConfi...

I would like to add to the chorus for adding move detection for Mirror Sync. I
have submitted this as a Feature Request on the tracker page.

True - the (significant) advantages of hard links has it's conditions. I should add though, on Windows, it's limited to NTFS for local volumes, but many NAS file systems (to which I would think is another major target for keeping backups) also support hard links. It's certainly not a one size-fits- ...

Well said. On your later point, seems that II) is best option.

I should add.. the way you put it, "Recycle bin for USB and network shares"
does sound attractive, but again, it seems an arbitrary way of keeping
backups, and is at risk of deleting an only backup of any (random) file.

"Recyle bin" is fine as a fail-safe to recover deleted files, but should not be counted on as a backup "method". One should not "file" things in trash - it's not good practice in the physical world, nor in the digital world. :-) "trash" implies uneeded, and sh...

"As a mathematician..." - well that helps to explain why this probably makes more sense to you. :-) "Delete as many old files..." - from what directories? You say size is based on the entire REVISIONS directory structure, so you would be deleting older files from a random mix of ...

I'm thinking FFS would be a nice tool to do *like* a workstation backup of a machine prior to reformatting. Unlike Window's File/Settings transfer though, I want to sync all local drives to some destination, but exclude unnecessary files and folders. This could be quite a list, and wondering if anyo...

I'd like to try again to make a case for adding an option for hard links. Though previously requested implementing hard links for the file revisions feature, I'd like to suggest that even as a sync option would be huge advantage. Granted, the sync operation would have to exist on the same volume, an...

Ah, I guess that makes more sense. However, how would you determine that? That sounds hairy. You would first need to scan the entire REVISIONS root to get current size, right? That can be costly - unless you're keeping track of that in some index file. Then how would you determine *what* to delete i...

But I figured to first go with the "limit bytes" option, which looks like a safe bet considering the Recycle Bin similarities. Boy, I sure don't know about this. "Limit bytes" per file or per directory? That sure seems like a moving target, as one backup may be 10s of MB and anot...

Ah! The light has gone on. As for the limit in X days and traversing the directory discussion: yes I was only considering the files that are being modified to be checked for limit X days - I hadn't considered *all files* in the REVISIONS subdir to be evaluated for x days - that being the case, yes, ...

> In order to cleanup files older than "last x days" you need to travese the complete revisions directory including subdirectories. On the other hand if you need to ensure that only a fixed number of revisions exist per file, you only need to check a single directory, and only do this if y...

> But there is a problem with limiting the time: In order to find all the outdated files, FFS would need to scan the entire versioning directory at the end of every sync. I don't understand why this would be any more difficult than the revision count. For any given file you're making a revision copy...

I like, and welcome, the limit revision ideas you offer. As for your "previous" revision tree, it's nice to see in explorer tree view files that have changed on a give run of a sync. True, I could just enable logging and refer to the log, but somehow the revision tree is easier. In the new...