Backup/Sync Groups or Profiles

Posts: 8 · roadcone 5 Feb 2022, 12:34

Is it possible to have a group that contains a number of different backup profiles?

Explanation: I wish to backup a range of folders to a common location. For example - Documents, Pictures, Videos - but those folders are on two different disks in the same computer (c: and d:). I'd like to create a group containing the three different sources which all backup to the same named folders but in a common backup location (e:\Documents; e:\Pictures; e:\Videos). So running the group would run three profiles.

I realise that I can Shift-click three groups and run them that way but on my system I end up with a great many profiles and it is difficult to separate the ones for backup to location from those that are sync to NAS. In a sense, I'd like a Group named, say, Backup to e and another named Sync to NAS - that sort of thing.

Can anyone offer any guidance please?

Posts: 4056 · xCSxXenon 6 Feb 2022, 15:48

https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=all#sync-multiple-folders
Like this?

Posts: 8 · roadcone 6 Feb 2022, 17:44

xCSx... No. I tried to indicate in the last paragraph of my post that although I can select multiple profiles, I end up with very many similarly named profiles / filenames and it is easy to select the wrong combination. Also, the list can get very long whereas the number of groups can be quite short. The attached Synbackfree screenshot gives an example (for very many reasons I prefer the Donation Edition of FFS but it lets me down on ONLY this one feature).

I can run the whole set, or just the '1' or '2' group or just a single line profile (for example, just images).

Posts: 4056 · xCSxXenon 6 Feb 2022, 20:11

Gotcha. No, there's no way to nest "sub-groups" in the sync panel.

Posts: 7210 · Zenju 6 Feb 2022, 20:22

FFS already supports grouping by color:
viewtopic.php?t=8768#p31436

Maybe there needs to be a way to make it easier to select the whole group?

Posts: 8 · roadcone 6 Feb 2022, 21:02

Zenju: I'll consider the colour coding - that will certainly make things easier to identify like profiles rather than scrolling a list of text. Thank you.

Posts: 8 · roadcone 7 Feb 2022, 14:11

Colour coding does make things more clear but I would like an easier way to group individual profiles into a container then be able to run the whole container - and, of course, still be able to run just one profile in the container (sometimes I back up the whole group and sometimes, when I know I have only added some recent images, I backup just the images folders).

Clive

Posts: 11 · s_decoster 21 Jul 2022, 09:05

I was wondering for the same, as I also worked with groups before: In the example pic, I ran just 5 runs (some with one external drive, others with another external), rather than all of these profiles separately.

In FFS I now indicated what would be a folder with a colored profile and I added a number and typed the profile name in capital letters. This works, although seeing some kind of hierarchy (or indentation) would make it even a bit more easy.

: 1c Van M naar C CDRIP.JPG (287.78 KiB) Viewed 917 times

Posts: 7210 · Zenju 2 Feb 2023, 12:16

I think giving a group of configs a dedicated color solves the grouping requirement. What else is left to improve? Is the problem that it's too tedious to select all items of a group in FreeFileSync? This is relatively easy with a single mouse click and drag-selection. Or is there something else that's missing?

Perhaps the context menu item should be called "create group" instead of "background color"?

Posts: 8 · roadcone 2 Feb 2023, 15:20

Hello Zentu,

I have a number of backup disks, preferring to spread my backup risk to multiple smaller disks rather than all to one big disk. Then ... I have separate tasks for, say, Documents, Images, Music etc. I may choose to run Images only to different disks or I may choose to run a group of backups to one particular disk. So I have a longish list of backup tasks/profiles. From a visual and usability perspective, having a single (albeit colour-coded) long list is less preferable than having a hierarchical, collapsible list. With a collapsible list, I can have it collapsed then expand just the options or group or combination that I want to run.

From my Syncback Free installation on another computer, as an example:

Images
>Disk1
>>My Pictures
>>CaptureOne Catalog
>>CaptureOne Backups
>Disk2
>>My Pictures
>>CaptureOne Catalog
>>CaptureOne Backups
Documents
>...
>>...
>>...
>...
>>...
>>...
Music
>...
>>...
>>...
>...
>>...
>>...
Spoken Word
>...
>>...
>>...
>...
>>...
>>...

So you can see that I can have a long list of '>>' profiles and although I have not yet run out of colours, eight is not a large number. And I can't see that my method is an unusual requirement (and I don't have the additional complication of uploading to Cloud or backing up to FTP - though I do sync to a network attached disk).

Regards

Clive