Showing non-existed and deleted files

[hyiu00]

The right side is connected to another computer via SFTP. The left side is the local drive. When I hit "Compare", the left side local drive is showing up with files which cannot be found with Windows explorer. Those files seems to be deleted old files that somehow still located inside that folder. Many files with tilder "~" at the beginning of the file name. When I try to "copy" from the comparison list to another folder, it somehow created a tmp file. When I select "delete" and move it to the recycle bin, it fixed the problem permanently. Why is it? It does not happen for USB drive and local drive. Only with SFTP.

[xCSxXenon]

Files with a Tilda at the beginning are temp files that didn't get deleted gracefully by the program using them. Your File Explorer isn't set to show these hidden files, but you can change it so you can see them. Just delete them though.

[hyiu00]

Thanks for your answer, but there are so many of these files, and I do not want to check them one by one to see if they are actually not gracefully deleted or they are useful files. Besides, why is the right side set to SFTP will affect what the left side local disk shows. Is there some quick wipe software that can wipe away these files quickly? I do not need to wipe the content, just wipe the file names will be good enough. But this still seems like a bug of FreeFileSync.

[xCSxXenon]

If they only show up when syncing with the SFTP location, they must already exist in the other locations you are syncing to. You can use CMD to find and delete these files. There is no risk, if they are in use, you won't be able to delete them. It's not a FFS bug, 100% guaranteed

[hyiu00]

Those files do not show up in the SFTP location. The comparison is showing me the difference. The only way I can delete them is within the FFS comparison list. There are too many of them. Is there a clean up software for this purpose? I tried CCleanr and they only have a "wipe" option which actually wipe the data instead. I just want it to clean up the file table.

[hyiu00]

Okay maybe those files are already in the SFTP computer. They could be originally copied there via USB disk. So a possible explanation is that since the SFTP server cannot show up these "not gracefully deleted" files, the comparison failed with those files in the original local disk. But no matter what, I think FFS should not have copied these files in the first place and should not have considered these files as valid. Maybe there should be a filter exclusion for these "not gracefully deleted" files. My setting is just the standard:

\System Volume Information\
\$Recycle.Bin\
\RECYCLE?\
*\thumbs.db
*\desktop.ini

[hyiu00]

Did a CHKDSK /f /r and fixed some deleted file problems. But FFS is still showing hidden files and folders, and a little bit of tilder "~" files. Not sure what file attribute these files are since FFS does not mirror file attributes.

[Plerry]

If those tilde-files do not just start with a tilde (~), but with a tilde+dollar sign (~$) they are most likely remnants of Microsoft Office files, generally caused by improper termination of an MS Office application (e.g. a forced system restart). You should then be able to recognize the file extensions as those from MS Office.
Don't blame FFS for intending to sync such files; it simply does what you tell it to do: sync all Included files that are not Excluded.
If you don't want FFS to sync files starting with a tilde (or tilde+dollar sign) you can add *\~* or *\~$* to your Exclude Filter.

If you want to remove all files starting with a tilde or tilde+dollar sign, you could use FFS.
Then replace the asterisk (*) in the Include Filter by *\~* or *\~$* and run (just) a Compare. Verify that only the intended files are shown, and then select all (Ctrl-A) and delete those files via the context menu.

[hyiu00]

Noted and Thanks!