How to change where ~ points to?

Support
1

I am new to Syncthing but plan to finally move to it after years with Nextcloud and Seafile.

One problem I encounter is where the ~ folder points to (I am not sure of the name, I saw “root folder” or “main folder” but will use ~ to disambiguate).

I read several posts and discussions about moving the “root/main folder” and the associated risks. The problem is that mu config.xml (SyncTrayzor on Windows 10) does not have any mention of a folder path. I do see entries such as

 <Folders>
    <Folder>
      <ID>default</ID>
      <IsWatched>false</IsWatched>
      <NotificationsEnabled>false</NotificationsEnabled>
    </Folder>
    <Folder>
      <ID>3qsvw-t7rqy</ID>
      <IsWatched>false</IsWatched>
      <NotificationsEnabled>false</NotificationsEnabled>
    </Folder>
    (...)

bit there are no paths anywhere (including for ~).

Question 1: what is the proper name for ~?

Question 2: where can I change it?

Question 3: I am in “pre-production” mode (I copied the actual data I need to synchronize, synchronized it betwen a few devices, etc. - but if I loose them I can recover) - does a chnage of ~ impacts existing folders? In other words, if I have defined a folder to synchronize as c:\hello\world when ~ pointed to c:\users\aaa\, will it be impacted in any way? This question is less about the risk for the data and more for the procedure to move.

2

The ~ is determined by the operating system, not Syncthing. In Windows specifically, it’s the USERPROFILE variable, which means that if your username is, for example, aaa, then ~ will default to C:\Users\aaa, etc.

If you want to actually use ~ in the unexpanded form in your folder paths, and then you move Syncthing to a different user account, then yes, the path will be impacted by the username change.

1 Like
3

Ah ok, thanks. I was misled by the fact that ~ on my Linux install points to /config but that must simply be the home dir for the user running synching.

4

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