SyncToy: Sync Power Toy for Your Toolbox

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You probably have heard about SyncToy already and might have tried it before. Well, if not, you should. Let me tell you why this tool is among the top fifty downloads from Microsoft: it is simple, elegant, and very very useful. It allows you to easily copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders, computers, USB thumb drives and more. Another thing, that you might not know this time, is that the team who brought the Microsoft Sync Framework to you is the same team who builds SyncToy, my team! Do you need more reasons why it is so cool? Hmm, I don’t think so …:)

Recently, we released the beta of SyncToy 2.0 with a lot of enhancements; here is a quick rundown of what is new:

  • Dynamic Drive Letter Assignment: Drive letter reassignment will now be detected and updated in the folder pair definition.
  • True Folder Sync: Folder creates, renames and deletes are now synchronized for all SyncToy actions.
  • Exclusion Filtering Based on Name: File exclusion based on name with exact or fuzzy matching.
  • Filtering Based on File Attributes: The ability to exclude files based on one or more file attributes (Read-Only, System, Hidden).
  • Unattended Folder Pair Execution: Addressed issues related to running scheduled folder pairs while logged off.
  • Folder Pairs With Shared Endpoints: Ability for folder pairs associated with the same or different instances of SyncToy to share end-points.
  • Command line enhancements: Added the ability to manage folder pairs via the command line interface.
  • The SyncToy engine has been re-architected to provide scalability and the ability to add significant enhancements in future releases.
  • Sync engine is also more robust insomuch that many single file level errors are skipped without affecting the entire sync operation.
  • Sync Encrypted Files: Sync of Encrypted files works when local folder and files are encrypted, which addresses the common scenario involving sync between local, encrypted laptop PC folder and remote, unencrypted desktop PC folder.
  • 64-Bit compatibility
  • Folder pair rename
  • Sub-folder Exclusion Enhancements: Descendents creates under excluded sub-folders are automatically excluded.
  • Folder Pair Metadata Moved: Folder pair metadata removed from My Documents to resolve any issues with server-based folder pair re-direction setup. 
  • Removed combine and subscribe actions.

Go ahead, give it a try, download SyncToy 2.0 Beta now!

Update: Just to let you know, I left Microsoft to start a new company, Raveable Hotel Reviews . See examples: Top 10 Hotels in Myrtle Beach, Best Hotels in New York City, Romantic Hotels in Seattle , Hotels with a kitchen or kitchenette , Romantic hotels in Kissimmee and Best Hotels in San Francisco . Your feedback is welcome on twitter.com/raveable, raveable blog.

I am not actively blogging about Sync Technologies. Please see Sync Team Blog for more updated content.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 29, 2007
    Why remove combine and subscribe? I use combine exclusively. I've found it's very handy when I want multiple satellite computers to contribute data to a large centralized repository.

  • Anonymous
    November 30, 2007
    The reason was our limited resources. The new version of SyncToy uses a different synchronization engine and because of that we had to make some tough choices when it came to reimplementing existing features. We knew that very few of our users used the two deprecated modes based on the collected usage data and hoped that they can use one of the remaining modes instead. I'm sorry about the inconvenience.

  • Anonymous
    December 01, 2007
    Is there a similar Toy to create folder pairs with mobile devices?

  • Anonymous
    April 23, 2008
    Why is there no integration with Vista Sync Center ?