Like the title says...
What 'easy' (user friendly that is) software can synchronize files and folders from desktop to laptop v.v. over WiFi.
Cloud service probably is too slow, in case of bulk file changes and reorganizing folders, etc.
(space is also limited)
As Jon says, Dropbox can do this. If you have a Synology NAS then a similar solution is their Synology Drive application.
Thanks Jon / aussieboykie
I guess something similar can also be done using OneDrive (see below)
However, as said, I am not sure about the performance when using a cloud service.
Some time back I gave it a try synchronizing folders with a number of folders, sub-folders and quite a number of files. I did some renaming and deleting, i.e. nothing strange, the usual stuff I would do on my desktop.
It took a lllong time (hours) to synchronize, reason why I am looking for alternatives.
In the meantime I went on and did some 'research'. Some 'sync' tools can do this over WiFi.
Drawback - they may not always be free of charge.
Like: SyncBack Touch or Allway Sync. Allway Sync , for personal use, is free of charge I believe.
BTW - just saw that Touch is just 10 dollar for a limited period. I gave SyncBack Touch a try and synchronizing is fast. In my case, with a fast WiFi that is.
Anyway, thanks again.
Dropbox can sync over wi-fi (LAN sync means it can sync from one computer to another on your local network without going over the internet). Not sure if Onedrive can.
Doesn't look like it...
For (background) syncing I have found Dropbox to be the best cloud solution, much better than OneDrive and GoogleDrive. Syncthing takes care of the stuff I don't need or want in the cloud. And why use another tool for manual syncing on a system with Opus on it?
I personally use Resilio Sync, which uses the Bittorrent protocol to sync, and in my experiences, is very fast and can also sync over LAN.
However, like Ixp had said, Dropbox seems to be the best simple cloud solution (Resilio Sync is not really cloud as it only syncs among your personal computers just like Syncthing).
Which one of these syncs ADS metadata?
I find this to be important since we can use DO to set rating/comments etc. on any file/directory. In many cases DO will put this kind of data into the file itself, but whenever it does not, you'll probably end up losing it sooner or later if your backup/sync tool does not take care of ADS.
Thank you all for the feedback. I have -not- tried Dropbox, that's to say, sync via Dropbox.
Checked my 6 years old never used 2GB Dropbox account and it still works.
(I have a 1TB OneDrive account, that came with Office 365. Actually, if I were to create one or more Outlook accounts, I would get 1TB per account, with a maximum of 5 accounts)
When using Dropbox I assume...that files need to be on the Dropbox server?
I have spent quite some time on this matter (synchronizing PC<>laptop) and will probably stick to the SyncBackPro/SyncBack Touch solution.
I have not come across a sync tools that does preserve the modified date stamp of folders.
In all cases, new folder dates are created. Not preserving the folder modified date stamp is 'unhandy'. It is the usual Windows (Explorer) behavior, I know but still...
With Opus I am used to having the folder modified date stamp preserved though.
Wonderful, really, but likely complicated to achieve as none of the sync tools offer that as an option.
Tried with 'sharing folders' - using Network and Sharing Centre-Advanced sharing settings - have laptop and PC autodiscover each other, etc.,
Both devices show up in Explorer tree under 'Network'.
It requires a lot of clicks though to share folders one by one (properties->sharing) on both laptop and desktop. Haven't found a way to share an entire drive/partition. That aside, that option seems to be more convenient in case of desktop pc. Usually a laptop has a kind of power saving plan. It shuts off, thus connection is lost.
Will use SyncBack Pro Touch.
Thanks again.
Very good point. This info does not get synced, unless it is a direct network copy. So it's lost immediately.
Use a little batch for this, e.g.
net share MyUsers="C:\Users" /UNLIMITED /GRANT:Everyone,FULLA very simple solution is using robocopy.exe, it comes with your windows installation:
robocopy.exe /MIR /NP /NJH /NJS /NDL /R:0 /W:0
It's the foundation of what I use to backup all the machines around. If you have filesharing enabled (admin-shares even better) and an admin-user which has the same password on all machines.. it's very straightforward to sync things around, no need for single shared folders.
robocopy.exe \MachineA\d$ \MachineB\d$\MachineA_DriveD ..
This syncs D:\ from MachineA to D:\MachineA_DriveD on MachineB, whether its LAN or WIFI and folder datetstamps will be preserved as well. o)
I looked into SyncBack very deeply and even purchased the Pro version. I did that because of good reviews and the promoted scripting api. It did not work out for me, the scripting api is horrible and even though there are a ton of options, I couldn't get along with it. This SyncBack-Touch thing on my Android also did not work as expected. Just my 2 cents on this one.
I reverted to a scripted little framework and robocopy.exe, much simpler and easier to customize the processes with these basic tools and I still don't have to miss advanced features like WakeOnLAN, EMail-Log, Auto-Shutdown, Quotas, File-Integrity-Checks etc. I'm happy to share it with you, it's text-editor configuration only, but you can see that as an advantage as well.
Hi tbone, many thanks indeed for your elaborate reply. I have heard of robocopy, but, frankly speaking, didn't pay attention to it. I even assumed it was a 3rd party tool, say like Teracopy.
As for SyncBackPro: you are right, there are a lot of options and it is a bit confusing sometimes.
Only after repeated attempts, installs, and quite a number of mail with support, I finally got 'Touch' working. It simply didn't detect my laptop, although it should.
Anyway, that aside, as said, I feel a little ashamed to say, but I never checked out Robocopy.
Meanwhile saw quite a few Youtube videos and websites.
Need some time to read this.
That said, does it support copying over WiFi.
I see it can when computers are shared, but WiFi ..?
If all the computers are in your local home network, it should work. It does not matter whether your computers use cable or radio connection, so yes, robocopy does fine with WiFi. It just needs to, as it does not know whether you're connected by wire or by radio. Just like your browser does not care if your computer uses WiFi or an ethernet cable plugged in to provide the network access.
There is a little catch though, your internet router (the little box you have put somewhere) might differentiate between devices connected by radio (WiFi) or cable and it might separate these from each other for security reasons. But if your SyncBack Touch thing worked (kind of), you seem to be good, your router is very probably not configured to separate radio and cable connected devices.
Sorry for the delay - was out, most of the time.
Thanks again.
I've been trying to figure out a working syntax.
so, I have, for example, desktop-name1 (my desktop) and desktop-name2 (laptop)
I want to copy a sub folder from desktop to laptop
tried something like:
robocopy.exe "\desktop-name1\d$" "D:\temp\Q-Temp\Folder2" /MIR /COPY:DAT /DCOPY:T /NP /NJH /NJS /NDL /R:0 /W:0 "desktop-name2\d$" 'D:\Downloads"
This, of course, won't work.
"ERROR : Invalid Parameter #10 : "desktop-name2\d$"
any suggestion?
In your commandline, there are 4 locations listed, robocopy always just uses two (source and destination).
So try something easy like this first. This copies "folder" from drive D of desktop to drive D on laptop.
robocopy.exe "\\desktop\d$\folder" "\\laptop\d$"
Since we use UNC paths here, it does not matter from which computer you run this. Keep in mind that this just copies the folder, synchronizing is not done because /MIR switch is not present. And one more hint, if you like to exclude specific subfolders, you can do that as well with the /XD switch (iirc).
Also make sure there is the double-backslash before the computer names in the UNC path, the forum might have swallowed yours, just to make sure.