How to not overwrite subfolders in Target

[gejmon]

Hello. I have just stumbled upon this software and it looks excellent but cannot work out from the manual if it can do what I want. Can someone please advise?

I wish to use it - both by schedule & upon my adhoc manual activation – to copy folders from a laptop Source to an external hard drive Target (just one-way). However, sometimes certain subfolders will be present in the source but sometimes they will not (due to dropbox selective syncing). This means that the key thing is that I do NOT want subfolders in the TARGET to be overwritten IF they are absent in the source. Example:

Source folders:
A1 parent
A1/A2
A1/A2/A3

Target folders:
A1 parent
A1/A2
A1/A2/A3
A1/A2/A3/A4
A1/A2/A3/A4/A5

In this scenario, running the software should overwrite Target folders A1, A2 & A3 for any file changes at Source (inc. file deletions), but will not touch A4 & A5 in Target (i.e. folders not deleted).

The next time I run the software, the scenario could look like this:
Source folders:
A1 parent
A1/A2
A1/A2/A3
A1/A2/A3/A4
A1/A2/A3/A4/A5

Target folders:
A1 parent
A1/A2
A1/A2/A3
A1/A2/A3/A4
A1/A2/A3/A4/A5

In which case I DO want the Target folders A4 & A5 to be overwritten for any file changes at Source.

I’m really hoping this is possible. Any help greatly appreciated.

[gejmon]

I guess this comes down to this:
if a subfolder that is set up to be included in the sync (i.e. not 'excluded' as per https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=exclude-items )
is then removed from the Source directory (A4 & A5 in my example), when FFS is next run will it also be removed from the Target directory? Or can FFS be set up to leave it alone? I guess this would mean 'files' are synced (in my case down to and including A3) to the same folder structure, but 'folder' deletions are left alone - any required deletions of folders would be done manually on the Target directory.

Thanks for any help!

[Plerry]

It seems the synchronization setting you should look into is the "update" mode,
(as opposed to the "mirror" mode) or define similar functionality via the "custom" mode. This will:
1. Copy any item existing in the source but not existing in the target to the target
2. Overwrite an existing target item by the source item if the source item is newer
3. Leave conflicts as unresolved conflicts, to be dealt with manually
4. Take no action if a existing target item is newer than its source item
5. Take no action if a target item exists without a corresponding source item
Particularly item 5 seems to be the one relevant to you.
However, be aware that this also means that files (pre)existing on the target but deleted from an existing (sub)folders on the source will also not be deleted from the target.

[KevinH]

Hey Pierry and gejmon, sorry to hijack this thread, but is there a way to rename a file if one already exists on a backup external hard drive?

Thank so much
Be well :)
Best Regards,
Kevin H.

[xCSxXenon]

Versioning is the only option that FFS supports for that scenario

[KevinH]

Thanks so much! I found the page that describes versioning :)