Folder Sync 2

Name: Folder Sync 2
Rating: 0 (0 reviews)
Author: Craig Skinner

Syncing since 2011

Only for Mac

Free · In‑App Purchases

Ages

4+
Years
Category

Utilities
Developer

Craig Skinner
Language

EN
English
Size

5.2
MB

Mac

Compare pairs of folders and display differences using colour coding. After comparing, choose to automatically sync the folders or manually manipulate the files (copy, move, rename or delete) directly within the Folder Sync window. Built in scheduling abilities which can run multiple Presets concurrently with no user intervention. Schedule Presets to repeat at a regular interval or to sync at specific days/times. Ideal for keeping multiple pairs of folders in sync, quickly and easily. Great for backups and for merging and managing content on external USB hard drives, Network Attached Storage, camera memory cards or any other drives from your network which are available through Finder. - Modern interface - Simple yet powerful - Great for beginners and advanced users - Sync Queue allows multiple Presets to run in parallel with no user intervention - Schedule Presets to automatically Sync using the Sync Queue - Excellent preview and feedback at every stage - Realtime feedback in window as files are read from disk - Powerful filtering capabilities - Superb custom selection abilities - Extensive logging system - Designate folders as "Read Only Mode" within the app - App will use the Recycle Bin where available - Ability to delay read of sub folders from disk, a HUGE time saver Folder Sync 2 also now includes a fully featured Duplicate Finder which can be accessed by starting a new tab using the Folder Sync 2, File Screen Menu - Search Multiple Folders to locate duplicates within them - Use File Name and Size as match criteria or match on File Contents to detect duplicate files with different names - All duplicates found are presented in a UI which supports Quick Look - Select multiple duplicates found to Delete batches of them - Comprehensive preview of all files marked for deletion prior to committing to delete - Accidental deletion prevention mechanism to prevent you accidentally deleting all copies of a file found in the search *** Please contact Destek Support if you have any issues and we will do whatever we can to assist. Thank you. ***

Ratings & Reviews

This app hasn’t received enough ratings or reviews to display an overview.

Version 1 was better
12/01/2021

nommek
Folder Sync 2 works GREAT! The UI, on the other hand, is not great. The renamed options in v2 (copy/update/mirror) are confusing. There also needs to be far better visual feedback as to progress. You have no confirmation that a compare is done other than that the counts stop going up. On a long compare that can be a real pain. Version one was much clearer on all these issues. Want another star? Give me a compare progress indicator (NOT a skinny blue bar, either) and a dialog that pops and says "Compare Complete: Folders Match" or "Compare Complete: Folders do not match". That might make me go five stars, even.

Developer Response
Good feedback. Thanks.
Version 1 was better
12/01/2021

nommek

Folder Sync 2 works GREAT! The UI, on the other hand, is not great. The renamed options in v2 (copy/update/mirror) are confusing. There also needs to be far better visual feedback as to progress. You have no confirmation that a compare is done other than that the counts stop going up. On a long compare that can be a real pain. Version one was much clearer on all these issues. Want another star? Give me a compare progress indicator (NOT a skinny blue bar, either) and a dialog that pops and says "Compare Complete: Folders Match" or "Compare Complete: Folders do not match". That might make me go five stars, even.
Developer Response 12/05/2021
Good feedback. Thanks.
Ruined a working system
11/05/2019

Gwezly
The original Folder Sync worked well, and I used it extensively when sync'ing external drives for backup and storage uses. After upgrading to Catalina, was surprised to find that it didn't work any more and that I would have to pay $15 for the new version. I paid up and bought it, expecting it to be similar to the original. It is absolutely soul crushingly slow. How slow? As an example, I was syncing a 60gb folder that is a Virtual Machine. This is going from one 3.0 drive to a Thunderbolt external drive. I select the source and target folders and press compare. The compare itself took 8.5 minutes. There was nothing to compare. It was an empty folder, on an empty drive on the right side. When I pressed "Update left to right" it informed me that I had over an hour to go. Comparatively, and out of frustration, I dragged and dropped the same folder. It took 19 minutes to move the whole thing in one click. It is nearly completely unintuitive. Nothing makes sense, is explained or is stated in a way that a solid user can assume they know what happens next. I'm by no means a power user, but I am very computer literate and had to look up many terms to determine if this might be the reason for the slow performance. Filtering seemingly does nothing. I filtered a very large folder to NOT be sync'ed and it took 10 minutes to compare that folder anyway. There may be a security sandbox excuse to be made, but the program is valueless currently.

Developer Response
Hi Gwezly, Some people have struggled with the changes made in version 1 which is one reason why a free 14 day free trial is available to test prior to purchase and I always encourage people to take advantage of that, even when upgrading. If you had contacted support I may have been able to help you with some of the things you appear to have struggled to get to grips with. You seem to be confused between reading files from disk and comparing. Because folder sync is a visual tool to display all information to you from both left and right sides, it all needs to be read from disk. When you do commit to syncing after being presented with the comprehensive preview, the time estimate is calculated as each file operation is completed and is updated every few seconds. The initial estimates made are usually conservative. If you had let me know what you found unintuitive, I could have helped you with that even if you didn't read any of the supporting documentation available on the website. Filtering on Folder Sync 2 does not completely ignore those file during read from disk (same behaviour as version 1), after reading from disk finishes, this allows filters to be adjusted and fine tuned without re-reading and ensures folder and package sizes presented are correct. Thanks for taking time to review and provide your feedback.
Ruined a working system
11/05/2019

Gwezly

The original Folder Sync worked well, and I used it extensively when sync'ing external drives for backup and storage uses. After upgrading to Catalina, was surprised to find that it didn't work any more and that I would have to pay $15 for the new version. I paid up and bought it, expecting it to be similar to the original. It is absolutely soul crushingly slow. How slow? As an example, I was syncing a 60gb folder that is a Virtual Machine. This is going from one 3.0 drive to a Thunderbolt external drive. I select the source and target folders and press compare. The compare itself took 8.5 minutes. There was nothing to compare. It was an empty folder, on an empty drive on the right side. When I pressed "Update left to right" it informed me that I had over an hour to go. Comparatively, and out of frustration, I dragged and dropped the same folder. It took 19 minutes to move the whole thing in one click. It is nearly completely unintuitive. Nothing makes sense, is explained or is stated in a way that a solid user can assume they know what happens next. I'm by no means a power user, but I am very computer literate and had to look up many terms to determine if this might be the reason for the slow performance. Filtering seemingly does nothing. I filtered a very large folder to NOT be sync'ed and it took 10 minutes to compare that folder anyway. There may be a security sandbox excuse to be made, but the program is valueless currently.
Developer Response 11/07/2019
Hi Gwezly, Some people have struggled with the changes made in version 1 which is one reason why a free 14 day free trial is available to test prior to purchase and I always encourage people to take advantage of that, even when upgrading. If you had contacted support I may have been able to help you with some of the things you appear to have struggled to get to grips with. You seem to be confused between reading files from disk and comparing. Because folder sync is a visual tool to display all information to you from both left and right sides, it all needs to be read from disk. When you do commit to syncing after being presented with the comprehensive preview, the time estimate is calculated as each file operation is completed and is updated every few seconds. The initial estimates made are usually conservative. If you had let me know what you found unintuitive, I could have helped you with that even if you didn't read any of the supporting documentation available on the website. Filtering on Folder Sync 2 does not completely ignore those file during read from disk (same behaviour as version 1), after reading from disk finishes, this allows filters to be adjusted and fine tuned without re-reading and ensures folder and package sizes presented are correct. Thanks for taking time to review and provide your feedback.
A Superior Product
06/20/2019

Bcolgate
Destek has written a superior product in Folder Sync 2.Specifically, Folder Sync 2 doesn’t fail when things aren’t perfect. I had a client’s old WD hard drive (one of many), and it kept unmounting by itself, but then the Mac mounts it again a few seconds later. Folder Sync 2 doesn’t give up like others do. It just picks up where it left off. This was in the process of aggregating 10TB of data files spanning 10 years of archives. It also has significant depth and detail I haven’t found in other apps that try to achieve the same function.

Developer Response
Thank you for taking time to review.
A Superior Product
06/20/2019

Bcolgate

Destek has written a superior product in Folder Sync 2.Specifically, Folder Sync 2 doesn’t fail when things aren’t perfect. I had a client’s old WD hard drive (one of many), and it kept unmounting by itself, but then the Mac mounts it again a few seconds later. Folder Sync 2 doesn’t give up like others do. It just picks up where it left off. This was in the process of aggregating 10TB of data files spanning 10 years of archives. It also has significant depth and detail I haven’t found in other apps that try to achieve the same function.
Developer Response 07/09/2019
Thank you for taking time to review.
Works, but new menus aer confusing
12/06/2020

DP Lew
I'll keep it short. Suppose what I want to do is copy any files on the left to the right that don't exist on the right.I clicked on the menu and I can "mirror left to right". OK, what does "mirroring" mean? Mirrors make things opposite.I clicked on "synch" and it says "update right to left" Huh? Does this update the right to be identical to the left, or does it update the what is on the right to the left, total opposites.Fortunately, I found the arrows pointing right and left, and clicked them. If you want to update the software, by all means do so, but make sure your menu items are clear. I don't care if I have to "grabonkoqitz" my files as long as the me menu tells me this will copy anything different on the left over to the right.

Developer Response
Thanks for your feedback, I am sorry that you found the menu confusing, I will look into improving that.Copy behaves as it would in any other file management app, select items and copy them to the other side. No intelligence is applied to a copy operation, if you’ve selected something and ask it to be copied, it will always be copied.Update and Mirror are “Sync Types” that you can configure however you want them in the App Preferences. Sync Types use the rules you define to work out what should be copied, deleted or ignored.The thinking behind Mirror and Update is to handle the following two main work flows.1. Many people use Folder Sync to keep a backup of a folder from a Mac onto a NAS box, server or external hard drive. Mirror is great for this as you can use it to keep them both exactly the same.2. Many people also use Folder Sync to push files from multiple Macs to a single folder on a NAS box, server or external hard drive. One example is that you own several Macs and they have small SSDs so occasionally you want to clean up the downloads folder and move that data off the SSD. In this scenario, you don’t want the source and target to be mirrored, you just want to push updated files from the SSD to the target drive. In a compare tab, Folder Sync never commits any changes to disk without first showing you the Sync Preview and that provides a good safe way to experiment with some test data, to let you see how each of the various options are working.
Works, but new menus aer confusing
12/06/2020

DP Lew

I'll keep it short. Suppose what I want to do is copy any files on the left to the right that don't exist on the right.I clicked on the menu and I can "mirror left to right". OK, what does "mirroring" mean? Mirrors make things opposite.I clicked on "synch" and it says "update right to left" Huh? Does this update the right to be identical to the left, or does it update the what is on the right to the left, total opposites.Fortunately, I found the arrows pointing right and left, and clicked them. If you want to update the software, by all means do so, but make sure your menu items are clear. I don't care if I have to "grabonkoqitz" my files as long as the me menu tells me this will copy anything different on the left over to the right.
Developer Response 12/30/2020
Thanks for your feedback, I am sorry that you found the menu confusing, I will look into improving that.Copy behaves as it would in any other file management app, select items and copy them to the other side. No intelligence is applied to a copy operation, if you’ve selected something and ask it to be copied, it will always be copied.Update and Mirror are “Sync Types” that you can configure however you want them in the App Preferences. Sync Types use the rules you define to work out what should be copied, deleted or ignored.The thinking behind Mirror and Update is to handle the following two main work flows.1. Many people use Folder Sync to keep a backup of a folder from a Mac onto a NAS box, server or external hard drive. Mirror is great for this as you can use it to keep them both exactly the same.2. Many people also use Folder Sync to push files from multiple Macs to a single folder on a NAS box, server or external hard drive. One example is that you own several Macs and they have small SSDs so occasionally you want to clean up the downloads folder and move that data off the SSD. In this scenario, you don’t want the source and target to be mirrored, you just want to push updated files from the SSD to the target drive. In a compare tab, Folder Sync never commits any changes to disk without first showing you the Sync Preview and that provides a good safe way to experiment with some test data, to let you see how each of the various options are working.

- improved support for macOS Tahoe - menu bar helper improvements - various other bug fixes and improvements

Version 2.28.0 11/11/2025

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Seller: Craig Skinner
Size: 5.2 MB
Category: Utilities
Compatibility: Requires macOS 10.14 or later.

Mac
Requires macOS 10.14 or later.
Languages: English
Age Rating: 4+

4+

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Folder Sync 2

Ratings & Reviews

Version 1 was better

Ruined a working system

A Superior Product

Works, but new menus aer confusing

What’s New

App Privacy

Data Not Collected

Accessibility

Information

Supports

Family Sharing