FreeFileSync Open Source File Synchronization

FreeFileSync User Manual:

#Quick Start Command Line Comparison Settings Daylight Saving Time Exclude Files Expert Settings External Applications Macros Performance RealTimeSync RTS: Run as Service Schedule Batch Jobs Synchronization Settings (S)FTP Setup Tips and Tricks Variable Drive Letters Versioning Volume Shadow Copy

External Applications

When you double-click on one of the rows on the main dialog, FreeFileSync opens the operating system's file browser by default:

Windows:	explorer.exe /select, "%local_path%" & exit 0
macOS:	open -R "%local_path%"
Linux:	xdg-open "$(dirname "%local_path%")"

To customize this behavior, or integrate other external applications into FreeFileSync, navigate to Menu → Tools → Options → Customize context menu and add or replace a command.

All entries can be accessed quickly by pressing the associated numeric keys 0–9 or via the context menu that is shown after a right mouse click. The first entry can also be executed by double-clicking on an item.

In addition to regular Macros, the following special macros are available:

Macro	Description
%item_path%	Full file or folder path
%local_path%	Creates a temporary local copy for files located on SFTP and MTP storage. Otherwise identical to %item_path% for local files and network shares.
%item_name%	File or folder name
%parent_path%	Parent folder path

To refer to the item on the opposite side, append "2" to the macro name:
%item_path2%, %local_path2%, %item_name2%, %parent_path2%.
To generate a list including all selected items (separated by space), append "s" to the macro name:
%item_paths%, %local_paths%, %item_names%, %parent_paths%.

Examples:

Start a file content comparison tool:

Windows: WinMerge

"C:\Program Files (x86)\WinMerge\WinMergeU.exe" "%local_path%" "%local_path2%"

macOS: opendiff (requires Xcode)

opendiff "%local_path%" "%local_path2%"

Ubuntu: kompare (sudo apt install kompare)

kompare "%local_path%" "%local_path2%"
Show file in Windows Explorer:

explorer.exe /select, "%local_path%" & exit 0

Note
Explorer.exe does not set an exit code, but FreeFileSync will show an error message if it does not find exit code = 0 ("Success"). To mitigate, append (&) command exit 0 to set the exit code explicitly.
Open command prompt for the selected item:

start cmd.exe /k cd /D "%parent_path%"

Note
FreeFileSync hides the console window, so start opens a new window. cmd.exe /k runs the following command without immediately exiting the console. cd navigates to the directory, even if it's on a different volume (/D).
Copy item path to Clipboard (as alternative to CTRL + C)

echo %item_path%| clip
Write list of selected file paths to a text file:

echo %item_path% >> %csidl_Desktop%\file_list.txt
Preview files using Quick Look on macOS:

qlmanage -p "%local_path%"
Pass a list of selected files to a script as command line arguments:

C:\my-script.cmd "%local_paths%"

Note
Macros need to be protected with quotation marks if they resolve to file paths that could contain whitespace characters.