Problem with filtering directories

[katharine1929]

Hi everybody, I have a simple problem. I do not understand the helpfile
regarding the "include" / "exclude" part.
My source dir is c:\data\ with several files and subdirs, my destination is
d:\data\. I want to sync all files and dirs eccept c:\data\temp\ with all the
content in here.
I tried a lot, but the result is always the same. What exactly do I have to
enter in the include/exclude windows?
Please give more examples in the helpfile. Thank you for your support.

[Zenju]

Hi Katharine,

the only important thing to not is that filters need to be setup relative to
sync-directories, for example:

Include: *
Exclude: \temp\

But FreeFileSync is quite tolerant with regards to the syntax it accepts. The
following variants would also be okay:

Exclude: temp
Exclude: \temp
Exclude: temp\
Exclude: \temp\*
Exclude: *\temp\
Exclude: *\temp\*

[Zenju]

Small remark: You can also use right-click context menu to exclude files or
folders. This has the advantage that you needn't care about correct filter
syntax.

[zardoz35]

ok for me but if I sync c:\source to c:\dest all dir ar copied
after this I want to exclude a specific directorie c:\source\exemple, I add a
filter Exclude \exemple but if the destination exists, it isn't deleted

Is it normal ?
(excuse me for my english)

[zardoz35]

ps I use FFS 3.7

[Zenju]

Yes that's normal. Files that are excluded do not participate in
synchronization. Therefore it's best to exclude temporary files right from the
start.

[zardoz35]

ok so the term "mirror" is not the exact copy from the left to right

if in the futur an option that can do an exact copy using exclude list should
be usefull. Don't you think too ?

[Zenju]

> the term "mirror" is not the exact copy from the left to right
"mirror" is indeed an exact copy as long as no exclude filters are used.
Exclude filters are implemented by applying to both sides at the same time.
Therefore the usecase for exclude filters is primarily doing partial backups

I understand your usecase, to exclude (probably obsolete temp) files and want
them deleted on target side (although they may still exist on source side.)
However I don't see how such an option could fit into the current design (with
regards to "update, automatic or user-defined variants of two-way). The
underlying inherent problem is that such an action is kind of the opposite of
synchronisation: before sync a file is existing and equal on both sides, after
sync it exists only on one (source).