Sync Source Changes

CONFIGURE GLOBAL AND FOLDER SYNC RULES

There is a balance that is struck between what content is local and what is not. The balance is personal, as each individual's needs vary depending on workflow and use case requirements. The starting point for any odrive user is to limit your local content so you can progressively access all content without being constrained by the physical limitations of the Internet and/or your local disk storage. The next point is to enable you to lessen the restrictions by configuring the sync rules applying to your access to content on a global and per-folder basis. 

AUTO DOWNLOAD (GLOBAL)

PREMIUM FEATURE

You can decide what is automatically downloaded when you browse into a folder. 

• By default, odrive sets your auto download limit to "Never download". You can browse odrive, open and download files and folders, all with the familiar single click and double click actions as you need them. 
• If you wish for files to always download automatically as you browse into a folder, then you can set it to "Always download". 
• If you wish to constrain what files are automatically downloaded by file size, then you can limit what is downloaded by choosing 10 MB, 100 MB, or 500 MB. The size number is inclusive, meaning, any files 10 MB or bigger is not autodownloaded if you choose 10 MB. 

The autodownload limit applies whenever you expand a placeholder folder. Once you have expanded a folder, the autodownload limit, even if changed, will not reapply to the folder, with one exception. It will apply to newly added files in the folder. 

FOLDER SYNC RULES

PREMIUM FEATURE

You can also decide what is automatically downloaded on a per-folder basis by using the right-click->sync dialog on a folder of your choice.

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This will sync a folder and download its contents according to your preferences, independent of autodownload limit settings.
Example of the Windows dialog:

If you checkmark both boxes, then every file, folder, and subfolder will be synced locally, including any new files and folders that are added after you apply these settings. 

Effectively, this is the mode you want if you want everything in that folder synced locally – and keep in sync locally – even as the folder's content changes. 

If you want to exclude files over a certain size, use the slider to set the size limit:

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As a rule of thumb, odrive will recognize folder settings ahead of autodownload settings.

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On demand operation vs. saved folder sync rule

If you only want to kick off a sync operation on a one-off basis and have no need to set rules for newly added files and folders, then keep the "Save and apply to new files and folders" box unchecked.

The folder will then be synchronized on a one-off basis such as described in the Sync Your odrive section.

A Premium subscription is only required to use the second checkbox in the dialog to save a sync rule for newly added files and folders.

DUPLICATE NAMES AND ILLEGAL PATHS

Conflicts may occur from file naming conventions that a remote source may allow while the computer OS may NOT allow. 

odrive reconciles these conflicts by preventing the offending file or folder from showing on the desktop view until you fix the problem on the remote source. 

If you see a file on the remote source but not on your desktop client, then you can check for the following potential issues: 

1. Two or more files with the same name in the same path
2. Exceeds character length
3. Reserved file names
4. Unqualified path