Excluding a directory

[sgtdeacon]

I managed to get this to work on my old install of freefilesync, but I can't
figure it out now..

I've tried to include all of these in the filter and none of them have worked:
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\*
*\C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\*
\*C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application
Data\Google\Chrome\
*C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\

Thanks for the help.

[Zenju]

Must have been a pretty old version of the tool. Excluding files and
directories works by specifying them relative to the base synchronization
directories, e.g.
Main dirs:
C:\source -> D:\Target

Exclude: C:\source\subdir\file.txt

=> Exclude filter "\subdir\file.txt"

Simplest thing is probably the right click context menu on main grid.

[sgtdeacon]

I'm backing up C:\Documents and Settings\user

I want to exclude the directory C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local
Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\

So the exclusion filter is exactly "\Local Settings\Application
Data\Google\Chrome\" ?

Am I supposed to include the quotes in it? Also in your example it was
excluding a file, do I have to put an asterisks or something else to show the
program to exclude all of the following directories from that path?

I tried doing the exclusion filter I mentioned above and it still is trying to
sync things from that directory when I compare.

[Zenju]

You can use

\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\
\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\*
\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome

without quotes, all will do.

Note however they have a slightly different semantic: If the phrase ends with
a "\" the tool will only compare against directories, while without the
backslash it will compare against a file or directory at this place. But
practically it doesn't really matter which style you use.

[sgtdeacon]

Thanks that worked.

To make a suggestion it would of really helped me if something like this was
present in the help files regarding excluding directories, I looked there
first and only found one thing that didn't help me.

[Zenju]

There is a help button in the filtering dialog. Did you notice it?

[sgtdeacon]

Now that you mention it I found it, but I thought that picture was just to go
along with the "tooltip" of "Only files/directories that pass...", so I never
hovered my mouse over it or clicked on it.

Is there a difference between:
\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\
\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\*


Also one thing I wanted to point out that was confusing me when I was doing
this, though I'm not sure if its a :

If you compare the directories without filters first and then add a filter to
the 'exclude list' it will turn the excluded items blue, and if you click the
"hide excluded items" checkmark it hides them.

However if you compare the directories with an exclusion filter in place it
will just not show the excluded items, whether the "hide excluded items" has a
checkmark or not.

I also appreciate you taking the time to help me out with this, it is a great
program that I've used for a while now.

[sgtdeacon]

I can't figure out how to edit my older post and I remembered wanting to
include this but forgetting to:

What I did do for help was go to help>content>excluding sub folders

This didn't help me as it was very brief and it confused me what it was
talking about.

[Zenju]

> Is there a difference between:
> \Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\
> \Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\*
When used as an exclude filter there is no difference. When used as an include
filter, the first variant includes the Chrome directory without sub-items,
while the second variant does include sub-items.

> Also one thing I wanted to point out that was confusing me
When filter is active before starting comparison, all excluded items are
immediately removed. This is for performance reasons, e.g. when a directory is
filtered, it is not traversed, which is relatively slow. On the other hand, if
traversing already has finished, there is no reason to completely remove
filtered elements. Disabling them is enough from a functional point of view.
There even is a slight advantage: if the user decides to change filter
settings, he can do so, without having to execute a recomparison.

> What I did do for help was go to help>content>excluding sub folders
I'll enhance this topic for v3.9 and explain how to set up file and folder
filtering in general. You're right, this is probably a major gap in the help
file.

[sgtdeacon]

Thanks for all your help and clearing my questions up for me.

[foxyshadis]

"You can use
\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\
\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\*
\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome
without quotes, all will do."

You might want to check that again, \Folder and \Folder\ does not appear to
stop FFS from bringing up the folder and its contents. Only \Folder\* appears
to work for me.

Is it possible to create an include filter like *.py that only copies the
current folder, not subfolders? Any expression with a * in it appears to
affect all subfolders as well.

[Zenju]

>You might want to check that again, \Folder and \Folder\ does not appear to
stop FFS from bringing up the folder
Can you provide a specific example showing this bug? Note that filter entries
need to be relative to base sync directories!

> create an include filter like *.py that only copies the current folder, not
subfolders?
Yes, include "*.py", exclude "*\". See helpfile -> Advanced -> Exclude via
filter

[gavinsmart]

Hi!

I'm trying to Sync left to right, like MS SyncToy can.
But SyncToy has a major problem as I see it; When one includes a directory it
also copies all files in that directory, even though i only want it to copy
the sub-dirs including the sub-dirs files.

So, how do i do that with FreeFileSync ??

Lets say i have:

c:\burn

that contains like ten directories and also like 25 files.

But i want to add the c:\burn to be synced, but without the 25 files, but with
the all the sub-dirs (including the files IN the sub-dirs).

How to do that with FreeFileSync ??

[gavinsmart]

And, as addendum to my post above, let's say i want to copy/sync the entire C:
drive, but without some sub-dirs.

How do i do that in some easy way ??

There should be some way to first include an entire Drive, and the just de-
select the Dirs one don't want included.
Without having to write their names down manually, but instead de-selecting by
just clicking.

[Zenju]

>How to do that with FreeFileSync ??
Now this is going to be obscure, but at least it's possible ;)
Use *?\* as an include filter.
Explanation: Generally one would expect *\* to suffice. FFS compares against
base-directory-relative paths, so that all relative filenames directly within
a base directory do not contain path separator \ and would be excluded.
However FFS wants expressions like *\file.txt to apply to all files named
"file.txt" even if they are located in base directories. Therefore "file.txt"
is considered a match although it doesn't contain a \. With regards to *\*
this means that * is also a match, but this matches everything.
By adding a ? we can suppress this special logic: Our pattern is \ . Now this
only matches subfolders and their child elements.

[Zenju]

>> C: drive, but without some sub-dirs. How do i do that in some easy way ??
First scan everything, then exclude the directories via the tree view control.

[gavinsmart]

Thanx for the Fast Replies!

#1 - seems to work, it's on-going now!

#2 - HOW do I scan everything ??

I include C: by Browsing to it, and then what ??

[Zenju]

> #2
Generally there are two solutions: 1. use multiple folder pairs 2. use a
single pair "C:\" <-> "backup drive", then compare and exclude
directories/files that are not needed.

[gavinsmart]

>> use a single pair "C:\" <-> "backup drive", then compare and exclude
directories/files that are not needed.


Thanx, that seemed to have worked, even if i didn't manage to then use the
*?\* on only the c:\burn folder.

I first included entire C:, then i excluded those files and DIRs i didn't want
after doing the Compare, but found no way to use the filter *?\* for only the
Burn-folder there?

So i had to manually unclick all the like 25-40 files in there. There really
should be a way to unmark (in the right pane when a certain DIR is
clicked/marked in the left pane) several files at time, instead of how it is
now, one has to manually click the Checkmark for each and every file ... :-)


=========

Other:

Noted that when i'm using Refresh in IE9 to look for new posts, it doesn't
come back to down here on the page, instead it stys up on the top after a
Refresh.

But when IE9 runs in Compatibility Mode, then it Refreshes and comes back to
where i was on the page.

So the Forum doesn't seem to handle IE9 well, just so that others can notice
this too.


/GS!

[gavinsmart]

And, one more thing!

There should be a way to set the Priority of the program, else than going to
the Task Manager!

Just a setting somewhere in the prg itself.

Since it takes huge resources when it copies huge or many files, and that will
conflict with doing something else at the same time, like now when i'm writing
here.

[Zenju]

> Use *?\* as an include filter.
I've tweaked the filter handling for v5.1. *\* will then mean "everything
except files directly in base directories"

> *?\* on only the c:\burn folder.
It's possible to have a filter match all subdirectories, but not to have it
match only files directly in a directory. This is a consequence of * also
matching \. So using multiple folder pairs with "c:\burn" being part of a pair
is the only solution.

> manually click the Checkmark
Most grid operations have "range" versions. Either you select multiple entries
and then use context menu, or drag-select multiple entries (e.g. checkboxes)
via mouse.

>set the Priority of the program
This option is hidden in GlobalSettings.xml: Set xml element
"RunWithBackgroundPriority" to "true".

[gavinsmart]

Ok,Thanx!

I thought i could download and try the v.5.1, but at https://sourceforge.net/projects/freefilesync/files/latest/download there's still only 5.0?

/GS!