Sync Documents Folder From Today Forward...

[GoForIt]

This was given to me from AI, it doesn't work and would appreciate the correct way to start syncing my Documents folder from today going forward. (Or what I'm doing wrong.)

So how do you actually do “from today onward”?
✅ Best practical method: “Start-from-now baseline” (recommended)
This is the clean, reliable way:
1. Set up your sync (source → Filen Cloud Storage).
2. Choose Mirror or Update mode.
3. Click Compare.
4. You’ll see all existing files listed.
Now don’t sync them:
5. Click the red arrows / exclude (or use right-click → Exclude temporarily) on everything
(or press Ctrl+A → right-click → Exclude)
6. Run the sync → this creates an empty baseline.
________________________________________
What happens next
• FreeFileSync now thinks everything up to this moment is already “handled”
• From now on:
o New files → will sync
o Changes → will sync
o Old untouched files → ignored

Thank you!

[xCSxXenon]

What does "today going forward" mean?
Going forward, from today, you want to back up all your documents?
You only want to back up documents newer than today?

[GoForIt]

Yes. From today on:

o New files → will sync
o Changes → will sync
o Old untouched files → ignored

Thank you.

[xCSxXenon]

There is a setting in FFS for the last X days, but honestly, why would you do that?
If you are dead set on this, I'd recommend just moving the 'old untouched' files to a subfolder and excluding that subfolder in the exclusion filters

[GoForIt]

Thanks for the help. I can use "This Month" in the Time Span filter setting and that should work for me. It's not optimal but it will work. Do you know why the above initial recommendation from AI doesn't work?

[Plerry]

> Do you know why the above initial recommendation from AI doesn't work?

I suppose because of at least two incorrect assumptions in AI reply step 6.
• If there is nothing to synchronize (because everything is excluded per step 5) FFS will not perform any sync-actions ("nothing to synchronize"), so does not create a "baseline" either (whatever "baseline" would be).
• (With a minor exception) FFS does not use a "baseline" of what it synced before to determine what needs to be synced..
If left-side-only files exist, (depending on your sync settings) FFS will copy such files left-to-right, irrespective of their time-stamp. As your "before today" files are no longer (temporarily) excluded, FFS will also copy those older files.
If files exist on both sides, depending on your settings for Compare, FFS compares the left-side file time and size, file content or file size of all files with those at the right-side.
For those files of which that file info differs, FFS determines the required sync actions based on the selected sync settings.

[GoForIt]

Thank you for the explanation. I'm basically wanting to do an incremental backup starting from a specific date. The "This Month" Time Span filter will be fine for my requirement. Thank you.