FreeFileSync problem with Mac aliases

[gfrei-ch]

I really like FreeFileSync, however, since I moved from Windows to Mac, I have a problem when copying Mac aliases and I wonder whether this is a bug or whether I just do not use the proper settings. Here is what I am trying to do:

I use the FreeFileSync Mac OSX version 6.10 on two MacBookPro laptops (both with OSX 10.9 = Mavericks) and an USB stick or external hard disk (formatted with ExFAT or Mac OS Extended Journaled file system) to synchronize my data between them. Normal data files are ok, but I have a lot of „normal" Mac aliases pointing to various folders (created with the cmd+L shortcut), which lose their functionality if copied with FreeFileSync. When I copy them manually to the USB stick and from there to the other Mac, they work well, i.e. they still point to the same relative folder path.
When using FreeFileSync to copy the aliases, they change their file type to either „Ausführbare UNIX-Datei“ or „Dokument“, whereas when copying them manually, they keep the file type „Alias“.
I have tried the different settings for symbolic link handling, but neither „direct“ (this is what I am intending to do) nor „exclude“ nor „follow“ seem to work. I have also tried several exclude filters (e.g. „*/.DS_Store; */._*“ or „*/.DS_Store“ or none), but could not get the desired result.

Using Google, I found some hints about the difference between „normal“ Mac alias files and hard links, however I am not familiar enough with the Mac terminal to try the latter. Do you think using hard links would solve my problem? If so, can you recommend a tool for making hard links without having to use the terminal?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Zenju]

I've added support for copying extended attributes, this should solve this problem. Let me know if there are any issues. Here's the new version for testing:

[404, Invalid URL: https://freefilesync.org/FreeFileSync_6.13_beta_Mac_OS_X_64-bit.zip]

[gfrei-ch]

I've added support for copying extended attributes, this should solve this problem. Let me know if there are any issues. Here's the new version for testing:

[404, Invalid URL: https://freefilesync.org/FreeFileSync_6.13_beta_Mac_OS_X_64-bit.zip]

Dear Zenju, sorry for the delay, I didn't check for updates on my post for quite a while. Thank you for the FFS6.13beta version, it works for aliases which have been created new. However, it does not find and update the non-functioning aliases which have been copied with the previous versions of FFS. Not even changing the file comparison settings to "File content" does find the differences of the functioning and non-functioning aliases in the folder pairs. It would be great if you could fix this issue since it would be very cumbersome to recreate all my existing aliases.

[gfrei-ch]

Source-Destination.jpg (203.87 KiB) Viewed 2279 times

Dear Zenju, I skipped a few updates, but yesterday a switched from FFS 7.1 to FFS 8.3 on a Mac OSX 10.9 (Mavericks). Now the Mac Aliases Problem is back again: While for FFS 7.1 aliases created new it worked fine, synchronizing with FFS 8.3 will produce non-functioning aliases on the destination drive, see screenshot. I would really appreciate it if you could fix this bug for the new version. Or shall I switch back to FFS 7.1 again?

[Zenju]

Does copying Aliases work for FFS 7.9, but not for 8.0? Then the breaking change is "Don't create AppleDouble files if extended attributes are unsupported (OS X)" and your target drive doesn't suppport ext. attribs.

[gfrei-ch]

Dear Zenju, thank you for your prompt reply, that's really an excellent support!
Yes, FFS7.9 works also fine, but FFS8.0 creates non-functioning aliases on my destination drive which has extendedFAT format.
I have also tested a destination drive with "Mac OS Extended Journaled" format, there FFS8.0 works fine. But I prefer ExFAT as destination drive format, because I want to have read/write access to the destination drive on a Windows computer. Therefore I would be really grateful if you could make it work also with ExFAT drives.

[frieli]

Hi, I am using FFS since July, and I am very pleased with the convenient handling and clear surface.

But now I have a problem with aliases as well. I used to synchronize documents between Mac OS X El Capitain and an usb-stick (formatted FAT32 in order to be used on all kinds of operating systems) and I wasn't aware of the problem at once, because most documents are not aliases. Anyway, since 8.2 (and still with 8.3) FFS turns every alias of a document from my Computer into a batch (Terminal.app) on the usb-stick. I "opened" the batch: all paths are enumerated, and the last remark is "cannot execute binary file".

This cannot be a problem of the usb-stick format, because there are already aliases on the usb-stick which I copied manually; these are working fine, finding the original document immediately. So I don't think that the FAT32 formatting of the usb-stick does not support extended attributes created on OS X. It only occurs during the synchronizing process.

What am I doing wrong? Can anybody please give me a hint? Thank you!

[gfrei-ch]

Dear Zenju, could you please comment on whether the problem with Mac aliases on extendedFAT drives has been solved in the newest FFS version? Up to now, I skipped all the updates since FFS7.9 because of this problem.

[gfrei-ch]

Dear Zenju, sorry for bothering you again with a very old issue of FFS.
I was still using FFS 7.9 on my old MacBookPro with OS 10.9.5 (Mavericks) to avoid the alias problem. But now, I have a new MacBook with macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina, but I am considering to update the macOS to BigSur). Even the donation edition of FFS 11.8 is still creating non-function aliases when exFAT drives are used.
The "Mac OS Extended Journaled" format is not an option for me since I also need to have read/write access to the files on a Windows computer.
Do you have any suggestions how to prevent that my alias files get corrupted? I really use them a lot and would very much appreciate if you could fix this problem.