Using Syncthing with missing folders...?

So this is about using Syncthing for something it’s not intended to do (at least the way I understand it).

I want to sync to a Windows computer that has several folders in an encrypted container. The container is locked most of the time, and I open it occasionally (let’s say about twice a month) to throw some files in.

This means Syncthing will not find these folders most of the time and report an error. I hope that when I DO have the container open, Syncthing will detect the folders and sync the files until it is locked again.

Why do I want to do that… the container is a backup of files otherwise synced all the time on other machines. The backup is encrypted. I don’t want to remember to zip and update files manually, it would be helpful if Syncthing steps in and does it when it can.

  • Will this cause problems with Syncthing? Conflicts, etc.?
  • Will Syncthing give up on trying to sync these folders for good after a certain number of tries?

If there’s a better / more elegant way to deal with this, please let me know! :slight_smile:

Sorry if this is under the wrong category, not sure if this fits here.

It’ll keep looking forever for the missing folder, so sounds like this could work.

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Thanks @calmh! another add-on Q on that… I know Syncthing has a built in config telling it how often it should look for the other folders.

For this, maybe it will be useful to reduce it or tell it to search less on some folders, how do I go around doing that? Is it worth it in your opinion?

Yeah, you can set the rescan interval per folder. Given that you mount your thing manually you might want to open the GUI and hit rescan manually as well, to make sure it does its thing.

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I could, but that’s defeats the purpose of having Syncthing doing automatically…

Yes I know, it’s totally not meant to work that way >.>

But that won’t help, as if you unlock it for 30s, it might not be enough time for syncthing to do the job, so you still have to synchronize this process somehow manually.

Perhaps its easier to sync the encrypted containers and decrypt them on the other side.

Interesting idea… The thing is though, I have a RP which is the “hub” for syncthing. It’s on 24/7 and syncs my different devices. I find that this way I have less confusions. I’d like to keep it that way if possible.

On the other hand, when I open the container to copy a file, it is usually an MP4 that needs to be compressed (I use ffmpeg) and that proccess takes a few minutes. I hope that that time would be enough for the sync to take place.

Well, keep hoping. Might as well hope that it decides to rescan in that time window and discovers the container unencrypted.