I am planing to run a containerized instance of syncthing. Because it is not that much on data stored on the node, I would like to be fully “clean” and wiping it completely except configuration and certificate files (e.g. when updating to a new syncthing version).
From my tests, it then just starts to resync all files to the local storage and is not deleting anything on other node (like if I would only delete a file on the local node).
Can someone confirm that this is a working approach or do I miss something and should do this?
I would say that you are safe, but if you want to be extra sure, you can also set all folders to Receive Only beforehand, and then only change them to the other types after everything has been re-synced.
The only two caveats I can think about right now are:
if there are pre-existing files on Android, because Syncthing uses virtual mtime there (unless run as root) that is saved in the database, and if you wipe the db, then the file mtime is going to be reset to the one on the actual filesystem, and then synced to other devices. This can be remedied by setting the folder type to Receive Only before the db reset.
if you use ignoreDelete, because here also, the ignored deletions are saved in the database, so if you wipe the db out, then all the previously ignored deletions are going to be pushed to the device in question.