I’ve been enjoying SyncThing to connect important folders on my 3 home computers. However, sync conflicts arise from time to time (probably from the fact my laptop goes on and offline) and I’m never quite sure how to handle them. Also the sync conflict files clutter up my drive.
I wish there was a way in the UI to see a list of the conflicted files and be able to manually select which one to keep.
Furthermore, I wish there was a folder preference for auto conflict resolution. If enabled, then you could choose (or maybe create) a rule / set of rules to guide syncthing on which file to keep.
For example: Always keep newest file. Always keep oldest file. Always keep largest file. Always keep the file on device name: .
I use chronosync to sync files between folders and it has a great system for this if you need inspiration.
At this point in time, SyncTrayzor is still the only Syncthing wrapper that offers its own conflict resolution mechanism that meets these requirements. Otherwise, you unfortunately need to search for conflicted files manually.
This would be a disaster for many (most?) use cases. As an example, consider the password database file or the spreadsheet you edit on one of your devices while offline. Then you forget about it and edit it again on another device. Bom! You have a conflict. There is absolutely no way to resolve such a conflict automatically without causing harm. So I argue that you must learn how to properly handle conflicts on a case by case basis, using methods which differs depending on for example file type. Good luck!
I understand your trepidation, as I would certainly not want to enable this feature on a folder where I’m managing sensitive information.
My use case comes from when I need to start syncing folders between two computers where the folder already exists. Some files are on both machines and some files exist only on one or the other. So I need to sync read/write, but then I end up with all these conflicts, which is frustrating because I know that I want all the files from Machine A.
Perhaps then my suggestion should be: A part of the UI that helps us resolve conflicts, and an option for “resolve all other current conflicts similarly”
On device A: Select folder type “Send only”. Then share it with the other devices.
On the other devices: Accept the share request. Set the folder type to “Receive only”.
Let the devices scan and sync.
On device A: Press “Override changes”. Clicking this button will enforce this host’s current state on the rest of the cluster. Any changes made to files will be overwritten by the version on this host, any files that don’t exist on this host will be deleted, and so on.
After the initial sync had been done and you are satisfied that the folder content on all other devices equals the content on device A, you may change the folder type to “Send & Receive” if you want to have bidirectional sync.