Feature request: compressed transfer

Discuss new features and functions
Posts: 1
Joined: 13 Oct 2025

i36e7ncyr

i wonder if it is possible to add a compression/extraction step in between.

i am using free file sync to backup larger configurations, about 3-5GB in total size, however they contain huge amounts of Symbols and Thumbnailfiles of a very small size.
whit the drawback that the connection cannot get up to speed.

i have better results with one large file of 3gb instead of a folder with 10000 files in it, also 3gb in total

if there is a setting already on this i also would love to hear from it.
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Posts: 2947
Joined: 22 Aug 2012

Plerry

The FreeFileSync (FFS) program always runs on just a single laptop/computer/server.
The slow-down due to may small files is mostly an issue in case remote/network locations are involved in a sync.
Because FFS does not run on that remote location, if FFS would need to do the compression, it would first need to get those remote files to the machine running the FFS program before it could do any compression. And would hence suffer exactly the same slow-down.

Obviously, if you first compress (e.g. ZIP) many small remote files into a single remote compressed file, via a compression tool running on the remote machine, FFS could sync such compressed file in one go and be much faster.
However, it would also mean that you effectively loose the benefit of using a file-level syncing tool.