Hello everyone,
I've encountered a problem while using FreeFileSync(MacOS) to mirror files between my USB and Google Drive folder.
Despite not changing any settings, recently when I mirror files, the modification date on the USB gets updated to the time of mirroring. This causes the USB files to appear newer than those on Google Drive folder, leading to unnecessary syncing back to Google Drive folder during subsequent operations.
This issue results in both the creation and modification dates being set to the time of mirroring, making it difficult to manage file versions accurately. Previously, using "Compare File Time and Size" settings worked well without such issues.
Has anyone else faced this problem? Any suggestions on how to fix or work around this issue would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Issue with Modification Dates When Mirroring USB and Google Drive
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 15 Apr 2024
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- Posts: 3607
- Joined: 11 Jun 2019
The USB drive format may not support the timestamps or the modification of them. Try switching to File Content or File Size comparison, although these will take longer to run.
What format is the USB drive?
What format is the USB drive?
- Posts: 2
- Joined: 15 Apr 2024
Thank you for your suggestion. My USB drive is formatted as MS-DOS (FAT32), and I haven't changed this drive recently. However, I recently updated my Mac to macOS Sonoma 14.4.1 (23E224) at the end of March, and the issue with file modification dates only appeared after this update. This makes me wonder if the update could have affected how FreeFileSync interacts with FAT32 file systems or file timestamps in general.
Has anyone else experienced similar issues on macOS after recent updates? I'm curious to know if this might be a broader issue with macOS rather than just an isolated incident with my setup.
Looking forward to any insights you might have!
Has anyone else experienced similar issues on macOS after recent updates? I'm curious to know if this might be a broader issue with macOS rather than just an isolated incident with my setup.
Looking forward to any insights you might have!
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- Posts: 3607
- Joined: 11 Jun 2019
FAT32 kind of sucks and does have some timestamp limitations. If you run a compare in FFS, check what the timestamps are of the files in Google Drive, they may be outside the range that FAT32 supports.
It might be worth backing up the data on the USB drive, if it is important, and then reformat it to exFAT if you need it to also work with Windows or HFS+ if you only need Mac support.
It might be worth backing up the data on the USB drive, if it is important, and then reformat it to exFAT if you need it to also work with Windows or HFS+ if you only need Mac support.
