Selective sync (choose folders to sync)

[helllo]

As a user, I want to be able to choose which folders from the ownCloud server I want to sync to my device. This is useful especially for netbooks with small hard drives or when you have a slow connection.

[ghost]

I don't think this is such an advanced feature.

• Sync clients for other services make it easy to exclude directories from the sync process (eg. lets the user choose between complete or selective sync, display a remote directory tree with checkboxes regarding each directory) before syncing).
• I use my owncloud instance to host and share large files that I don't want to sync.
• I don't even have enough free space on my laptop's hard drive to download them. I was stuck in the middle of a sync process with no disk space available because of this, glad i found @rasos link.

Please consider making an exclude list available in the UI, thanks.

[jancborchardt]

@nodiscc yes, selective sync is planned, but a different topic from this thread though. See https://github.com/owncloud/mirall/wiki/Desktop-client-next-steps »selective sync from server«.

[jancborchardt]

@dragotin @danimo @MTRichards we just had 2 duplicate issues reported again. What do you think about the importance of this? Version after the one with #102 (indicators in file manager) or something like that?

[MTRichards]

Yes. Selective sync is important, after indicators we can slate that for 1.6?

[wbinventor]

My group at MIT is looking to begin using owncloud, but selective sync (from the server to the client) is a dealbreaker for my boss. When do you guys expect this to be implemented?

[danimo]

@wbinventor Selective sync is already possible, just not in combination with a "sync the rest to this directory" default.

[wbinventor]

It doesn't seem to be clear how to use it through either the web interface or the desktop client (for Linux) - what am I missing?

[danimo]

@wbinventor The Web Interface has no business with this. The Clients "problem" is that the setup wizard does not allow to unselect specific folders. Instead you need to remove the global folder sync, and add the individual folders you do want to sync individually.

[MTRichards]

By Default, ownCloud syncs the ownCloud desktop directory with the entire server. What you can do is remove this in the settings menu. Go to the system tray icon, left click, select account. Select the syncing all files in your account and click remove. Then there is a button add folder, where you can select the desktop folder to sync with the server folder of your choice.

[foxbow]

Will 'selective sync' still allow my client to sync files up? Take the music collection for an example. I don't want all the music on my notebook, so I deselect it from syncing down from the server. However I want to make sure a freshly ripped CD will be synced up to the server.

[jancborchardt]

@foxbox it's either you sync the folder or you don't. What you could do is add the CD folder to sync up. or manually upload it in the web interface.

[foxbow]

@jancborchardt This is a little confusing.. In the first sentence you mention that it's all or nothing and in the next sentence you mention a 'sync up', which is exactly what I want. So if there will be in fact a 'sync-up' option then I'd be completely happy. And if I just was not able to see that this is already possible then I apologize and beg for a pointer ;) Thanks!

[jancborchardt]

@foxbow what I mean is that in the case you described it would not be possible to upload the album without extra manual work.

[foxbow]

@jancborchardt Okay, guess I'll probably check into c/rsync to build a service/demon doing something like that. Thanks for the clarification!

[MTRichards]

I would like to bring this one back up. In the initial setup wizard, we need an "advanced" option that allows a user to not just sync the default folder, but instead to select the sub folder(s) to sync during the initial setup. While this is achievable today by removing the default sync folder setup, it needs to be easier.

[jancborchardt]

@MTRichards that’s exactly the plan. It would be in the same step as the »Choose local folder« is. Just a matter of prioritization when it’s done …

[evclay]

But it should be just as easy to select and de-select the folders after they have already been synced. Similar to dropbox's interface under "select sync" in which it is a simple checkbox next to the folder.

[jancborchardt]

Yes, of course.

[mzeinstra]

Right, the options I see is either using the patterns to exclude or remove the sync folders and build your own mapping to your system. Both are probably to difficult for the average office worker.

The problem with those objects is that projects in organisations never stay stable. Project wrap up, new once are started and people are moved from project to project. I want my users to just have one folder that says 'work' or 'data' that contains all folders, but that the users can say which (sub)folders they want on their system. What I read in the comments above reads more like a selective push than a selective pull. I am only talking about pull here.

Ideally I would have checkboxes in this window where I can select which folders I pull.

[jancborchardt]

Yes – but first things first. Selective sync covers most use cases. After that is implemented we can see what’s left and in which priority it makes sense to work on.

[MTRichards]

Issue has been continued here to clarify specifically what this first step should be for selective sync:
#1766

[PaSavICT]

Is not working for OS X Client Software. And you can't change the folder you selected afterwards.

[jancborchardt]

@PaSavICT this is not yet implemented. The new issue is at #1766

[jarreboum]

As a new users (as of yesterday) here's my take on this.

The ownCloud folder shouldn't be equivalent to the root folder on the remote system, but instead should be a subfolder of root. Every other folders at the root represent an external folder. The owncloud folder should behave like it is now, being automatically synchronised, holding the various ownCloud files and folders like Notes, calendar, etc. It should act like a virtual basket, where people throw stuff to be shared or kept safe.

Basically I'm saying you should do it like Ubuntu One. Conceptually I mean, their implementation meant nothing could be shared outside of $HOME. DropBox gets away with having its DropBox folder as root because they don't allow external folder sharing.

This should at least solve the problem of having EVERYTHING downloaded when setting up a new client, while still downloading what the user feels like essential files (that he placed in the ownCloud subfolder). And it would give some leeway to implement selective sync for external folders.

[jancborchardt]

The ownCloud folder shouldn't be equivalent to the root folder on the remote system, but instead should be a subfolder of root.

We had that in the past and it was just confusing and too complicated.

Most people simply want to sync everything. Dropbox doesn’t »get away« with it, it’s just makes for a dead simple mental model and makes it easy to understand what is synced.

Selective sync is coming in the next release so that’s that.

[jarreboum]

And yet that's exactly what confused me in the first place.

I subscribed to an owncloud provider and set up my client. the provider kindly populated the root with some sample files and folders to get me going. After having set up the client, and automatically created and downloaded the ownCloud folder, I tried to synchronise an external folder.

Now this part isn't quite clear and I still don't really understand why it needed an Alias since it's identified with a local path and a remote folder. But I digress. The problem was that I could not finish the process as my ownCloud folder was active! I had to delete the connection of the ownCloud folder for some reason before I could upload my external folder. Then when I tried re-adding the ownCloud folder, it downloaded everything, including the folder I just uploaded, essentially duplicating all my files inside the ownCloud folder!

With the ownCloud local folder replicating root, it just means every time I set up a new client I have to manually undo what was done for me by the installation, ie removing the synchronisation and said folder, and do every external folder, forgetting about ever having an ownCloud folder where I just put stuff. I actually had to create a special folder to do just that. it also means that Notes (and whatever else ownCloud file there could be) is now an external folder for me.

Why I'm saying DropBox is getting away with it is because as soon as you create an external folder synchronisation, you can kiss your Client folder goodbye. To me it's exactly why Dropbox never got to have external folder synchronisation, and why Ubuntu One had it from the get go.

Having an ownCloud folder not as root means it's visually obvious what folders are meant to be external and what is ownCloud stuff. Root just contains folders. Every folder is an external folder. ownCloud folder behaves just like an external folder, except it's set up differently upon client installation. People wanting to just sync everything, or make it behave like DropBox can still do it, by using the ownCloud folder. The way the client install is done facilitates this use.

[edit] And I'm really sorry for the wall of text.

[jancborchardt]

@jarreboum I assume by »external folder« you mean a folder on your computer which is not in the »ownCloud« folder. In the next release there will be a button in the setup wizard saying »skip folder setup«. This doesn’t set up the initial connection of ownCloud-folder to server. Then you can proceed adding your own custom connections.

[Overand]

It's pretty frustrating that every time I install the ownCloud client on a new computer, I have to go through the installation wizard, then pause syncing, delete the "ownCloud" entry, go into that folder/directory on my local system, delete all the erroneously synced folders, and then go through the setup process.

I think the solution to this is simple. Provide an "Advanced" checkbox on installation (default unchecked), and when that's enabled, the only difference we'd need from the "normal" installation would be an additional checkbox (default selected) that says "Add default (root -> ownCloud) sync"

That's it. Easy-peasy! I might even try to take apart the installer and submit a patch, but that may be a bit beyond my abilities.

[PVince81]

@Overand I think that issue with "pause syncing" was fixed in the 1.7.0 beta, with a similar solution like you suggested.

[danimo]

@Overand yes, 1.7 will allow for a custom folder setup (and/or choosing specific subfolders for selective sync).

[khurshid-alam]

If I deploy owncloud on OPENSHIFT(1 GB free space) & add Dropbox, does entire Dropbox data gets synced? Do I able to use selective sync for Dropbox folders (My Dropbox has 50 GB)? I don't want to sync my entire dropbox & I don't want to create specific App folder.

[KuenzelIT]

Hey,
selective sync is working great so far, but if I sync two subdirectories of a directory and this directory gets a new subdirectory, it's also synced and I have to disable it again. Is there some way to make sure that really only the selected subdirectories get synced and no others?

If I put my subdirectories in the root directory, it's working fine. But that destroys the directory structure.

Thanks for this awesome feature!

[lbryson]

@Overand , Yes, I agree: as an admin, doing a wide deployment, I need

1. a way to tell the Owncloud client to not add any synced folder by default; and
2. FOr those users that have their (default) "ownCloud" folder synced, I must be able to set it to not automatically add any new folders that are shared with the user.

Is there a separate issue for #2? It's a real problem when I add global external storage of several TB of builds, docs, etc., then everybody's devices start automatically syncing this down and filling up their client devices.

[jonesints]

A couple of points on selective sync:

1. I have a very similar scenario to @Lbryson-lifesize, when several TB are involved, the last thing one would want is for it to immediately sync to all clients. It's very counter productive. A simple option in the client sync app to choose which behavior to follow would be great, ie, a tickbox with "automatically sync shares". Even better, a popup or new tab in the client showing new shares and giving an option for the user to sync or not would be immensely useful!

2. The other issue is that selective sync works on a directory basis. A problem arises when very large files that are not contained in a folder escape the "selective sync", ie large zip files, mov files, and any other large file.
   I know there is a specialized and useful tool to Ignore Files, but this is a different function. Someone might want to sync up certain movs and leave some on the cloud.
   Would a selective sync per file option be possible, or is there any other way of rethinking a solution to this problem?

[MTRichards]

@Lbryson-lifesize and @jonesints you may be interested to look at #3148
We are planning this for 2.0, which comes out soon in beta. It includes the fodler confirmation.

Doesn't solve the large file sync issue, but gives a threshold for new folders.

[jonesints]

Thanks for the reference @MTRichards, pretty excited it's already being developed!
Should I create a new issue for the individual large files issue? Many ownclouders work with media files, and these seem an inherent problem under the current folder selective sync method.

[MTRichards]

@jonesints that would be great. I have to be honest, I am not entirely sure how that would work across the board, so would be good to have a conversation about it. (in a new user story:))

[awikatchikaen]

This doesn't work for me on the v2.0.0 build 5423, I've selected one folder but all files from my server are downloading...

[phil-davis]

Note that when you select a particular folder you also get the files in the parent folder/s synced. There is discussion about that elsewhere as to why that is a "necessary evil".

[awikatchikaen]

ok, thats weird, that's very weird, and useless
and it's not very clear in the interface ....

[mkln]

like @jonesints said, if I want to sync a subfolder (say, /A/B), I may not want to sync files in A that are not in a folder
To see an example of what I mean, the windows OneDrive client implements this with a tick that one can have on "files not in a folder". every folder has such option.

without this option, I am forced to sync >50gb of files that are in /A but are not in a folder, just because I want to syncronize /A/B.
Now, if I had control over the folder I could just create one, or move B, or else. But what if I cannot change the folder structure? I can envision multiple scenarios in which I might not want to have all not-in-a-folder files unsynced.