Selective Synchronization

📱 Desktop & mobile clients 💻 Desktop
1

I am syncing an entire volume but there are a few folders on that volume which I don’t want to sync. Is there a way to exclude them?

2

Just Uncheck the Folders in the Sync Client GUI.

3

Thanks for the quick reply. But when I do that it warns me that "Unchecked folders will be REMOVED from your local file system…"
I am sychronizing TO the server from my local files. I don’t want the local files deleted, I just don’t want them uploaded. So will it delete my local files as it warns if I uncheck them?

4

Even though the synchronisation ist Bidirectional, the Client only allows you to choose which folders to exclude from Downloading TO your computer. Not the other way round. Would be a feature request, but i dont know if this has already been dicussed or not.

Whats your usecase btw.?

5

A workaround suggested was to put your specific folder into the ignore file list. Then it is not synced anymore, but it stays on your desktop …

6

thanks - I’ll try.

7

Is there a way to control selective synchronization from the server side.
This is a problem for only desktop clients. On android and IOS, it is the expected behavior for all files.

I have large folders that end up being downloaded to each user’s client unnecessarily. I want the desktop client to not download certain folders, and to behave much like an android or IOS client.

I would like to be able to place a hidden file (much like .htaccess) at the root of a folder tree that would instruct desktop clients to not sync the folder to local machines.

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8

Not currently. But you maybe could find WebDAV Clients which have that functionality.

9

I was just thinking about this today and started to become somewhat concerned about the implications of sync, particularly with group folders. I dont care so much what happens with one clients data, but with group folders ( the bulk of all data ) I dont want users to be able to sync as a server side function because:

  1. I cannot track ( audit ) webav transactions as far as I am aware.

  2. The size of the data is enormous ( 800GB ), which is more space than most of the workstations have in the first place. Most of my workstations have 500GB hdd.

  3. If one user of a group folder gets a crypto, I am stuck restoring 800GB of data from backup.

So my thought is sabre-dav needs a file access rule to block certain folders ( such as group folders) from sync to make this happen server side. I think there is a file access control app for Nextcloud but I havent familiarized myself with it enough to determine whether it can accomplish this objective.

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