Selective Sync Feature(most important)

Feature
#1

Hey there, Syncthing Team, thanks for providing this wonderful app.

this app is wonderful but all the time i keep feeling the need of a feature -

Selective sync

this feature should be your top priority because everything is going fine. Rsilio Sync has this feature but that app is slow in working and not constant like syncthing. Sometimes i Need to share my hard drive data through syncthing. I don’t want all the data , i need different files from different different folder. So now if i share all the drive at once it’s gonna download all data and thus it takes full space. So please provide SELECTIVE SYNC FEATURE.

#2

Syncthing-Lite :slight_smile:

#3

Except that was in alpha state and isn’t maintained/is archived for quite a while now.

Try to not use that word, enhances your chances of getting meaningful and sympathetic reactions :wink:

You don’t explain why ignore patterns don’t work for you: Ignoring Files — Syncthing v1 documentation
I guess too complicated/no GUI interface. Agreed, having that would be nice.

#4

okay,

if you feel “should” word was meant to disrespect you then I’m taking back my word Bro.

Yeah it’s complicated but i can handle that. I never tried “ignoring files” feature. I think it means syncthing will not sync those files from that particular folder or is it (ignoring files) means the same as selective sync like , we can see the name of the file in our list and if we want it we can click on it to download it??? also bro selective sync means , as far as i understand is you'll get all the list of files in that folder but not synced so they are not taking any space in hard drive but if you want any file you can click on it to download it.

#5

Click to download file sounds like a web server, not an application that syncs files. As there is no syncing, its just “click to download”, I am not sure that feature fits in well with syncthing.

#6

This what Dropbox calls “smart sync”, i.e. the files appear in the system, but take only 0 bytes, and are only downloaded once actually used. From then on, they just become local files. It is “cool”, but probably very difficult to implement on a file system level in all the different operating systems.

#7

With selective sync, Resilio first creates a complete directory together with the files of the folder with the help of links. Then in a little browser it is chosen what should be physically synced. The selected folders and files will be downloaded and synced normally. If you want to have additional folders or individual files physically on your computer, the links are processed accordingly. So far for the function there.

Something similar would have to be built into Syncthing as a feature. For now, I’d just work with Ignore Patterns. That would mean opening the list, editing it accordingly and closing it again. I think that is reasonable. This becomes easier if complete folders are ignored, as otherwise an overly long Ignore List can arise, which could also negatively affect performance. However, it is then not possible to see directly what physical elements are still available remotely and which could be downloaded. Such elements are seen in the ignore list.

It looks different when files are added, deleted or renamed, etc. In everything, the ignore list must be in the foreground. That can sometimes go wrong if it is forgotten.