Scenario
I have a PC, Laptop, 8 GB pendrive and work/study PC outside. I always carry my pen drive wherever I go and obviously I use this pen drive to store all my works, documents, ebooks etc. The only problem is, every night, I need to synchronize the content of that pendrive with my PC and laptop. Sometime, I updated my work using laptop and forgot to send to my pendrive and the other day, it happen again when I used my PC. To give you general idea, ideally, I want to have 3 exactly identical copy which are 1 in my PC, 1 in my pen drive and 1 in my laptop and honestly, updating (and have to remember which files need to) various kind of file every night is not a fun and productivity task.
I need a folder synchronization folder. I tried Allway Sync but unfortunately, free version has limited number of operation. Yesterday, it keep reminded me that I need to upgrade this software to Pro version. Bleh. So, after a quick googling and crawling in cyberspace I found this piece of gem (freeware). A folder synchronization by Microsoft.
Solution:
Download SyncToy (FREEWARE) from : Microsoft Website
Install it as usual.
First page that will greet you as below.
Click on Create New Folder Pair.
Click on Browse button for both Left Folder and Right Folder. Left folder will be my folder in my PC while Right folder will be my USB drive.
Choose your folder that you want to sync between your PC/Laptop and your pen drive.
Here is my left and right folder pair looks like. Then click on Next button.
Choose any of sync method. I choose synchronize as I want any update I perform in pendrive will update my work folder in pc too and vice versa.
- Synchronize: New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other.
- Echo: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right.
- Contribute: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions.
Put any name reflected to your folder sync job. Then click Finish button.
Viola…we almost there. This is the property of my Study folder sync pair job. Click on Run button to start syncing.
SyncToy is synchronizing my PC and my pendrive.
Done.
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Tips
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To get SyncToy to autosync when a thumbdrive is plugged in :
1)Setup desired Folder Pairs in SyncToy
2)Use TweakUI from Microsoft and added SyncToy as an autorun handler as seen here
3)Changed the autoplay action for each content type on my thumbdrive
a]Right click on thumbdrive –> Properties
b]Select “Autoplay” tab
c]change “Select Action to perform” -> Sync with SyncToy
