There is apparently also a "Donation Edition" -<p><pre><code> Everyone who donates is eligible to download a special
version of FreeFileSync without any advertisements,
including a few of bonus features.
</code></pre>
It is built from a different source, so it's neither free or open source. Not that anything wrong with it, but it should probably not be distributed under the same name - <a href="https://freefilesync.org/faq.php#donation-edition" rel="nofollow">https://freefilesync.org/faq.php#donation-edition</a>
One issue we've had with FreeFileSync is that the 'portable' functionality of it is a paid-only feature. As are removing ads. We'd rebuild it ourselves and rename it if needed, but the source code requires patched libraries and has no/incomplete build instructions. Neither I nor anyone else I know was able to get it to build, at least over the many years I played with it. That's why the version we make available at PortableApps.com is still version 6.2, that last version that didn't purposely break portability.
The killer feature of this over rsync or rclone (which I love and use almost daily) is pre-run inspection and conflict resolution for each individual file. You know when you need it, and when you do, FreeFileSync shines.<p>For those mentioning WSL enabling using rsync on Windows: have been using it with Cygwin for years, zero issues. So, WSL wasn't a hard requirement.
I've used FreeFileSync to keep two Windows machines in sync for years. It works incredibly well. It's very fast too; copying lots of files in Windows is often bafflingly slow. Whatever this tool does is not.<p>I finally quit using it because I got Starlink at my house and now have enough bandwidth to just let Syncthing keep the machines in sync. But if you need to sync through a hard drive you carry around FreeFileSync is great.
This used to be my go-to sync software. I used it via portableapps on Windows. I stopped using it in favor of free portable syncing software when they started charging for the portable version and not allowing it to run from the PA launcher.
This tool is in my essentials toolbox. I use it for everything, backups, comparing snapshots, comparing git branches, external drives, you name it.<p>Inspecting file tree differences is key to all of those actions, as far as I am concerned, and FreeFileSync does it best, and is multiplatform to boot.
How come this awesome software not more discussed here ? Anyone here use it ? It literraly been a life changer for me in my backup strategy and I can't recommend it enough to everyone.
Just wondering what's the sync algorithm being used by FFS, is it similar to vanilla rsync algorithm, Microsoft's RDC or Syncpal [1],[2],[3]?<p>[1]<a href="https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/15-749/READINGS/required/cas/tridgell96.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/15-749/READINGS/required/c...</a><p>[2]<a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/tr-2006-157.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/...</a><p>[3]<a href="https://hal.inria.fr/IFIP-LNCS-11534/hal-02319573" rel="nofollow">https://hal.inria.fr/IFIP-LNCS-11534/hal-02319573</a>
Great software, but building it from source is complicated, as libraries need manual patching. And on Linux from version 11.6 they introduced custom binary installer, that's useful for beginners, but for power users and flatpak packagers it only brought problems.
see also: <a href="https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/" rel="nofollow">https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/</a>
I used a tool similar to this for many years. Then WSL happened, and I started using rsync in there instead to backup and restore stuff on Windows, just like I do on Linux.
I looked at a fair amount of sync and backup tools for macOS a little while ago including this one and couldn’t find any that copied to an external drive on connection. Only on a schedule.<p>Does anyone know if this is a technical limitation? It seemed like such a core thing to me but it just kept coming up missing.
For anyone mentioning rsync, I would assert that rsync is very poorly named, and has polluted the ‘sync’ namespace with a meaning outside of what most people understand synchronization to be.<p>Outside of rsync, the ‘sync’ term almost invariably refers to bi-directional synchronization, with data going between both systems, so when the process is complete, both sides match. Rsync does not do this—it sends files one way only, which is what most people would refer to as a ‘mirror’.<p>Every other “sync” tool does things bidirectionally, so rsync really doesn’t belong in a comparison with other sync tools.<p>P.S. I’m aware that people who have never known a world without rsync may not realize that there’s a very real dividing line here, and this concept is very much one of the first the needs to be explained to people when first learning rsync.