Sharing documents folder between MBA and iMac

[ash987]

Hello...here's a problem that I can't get my head around and hopefully you guys can help:

I have just bought a MacBook Air, an iMac, a time capsule and a .mac subscription. This is what I want to happen.

The iMac is my main computer and houses all of my documents, photos, music, videos etc. The MBA is secondary, for use outside of the office.

Say I am away from any wifi spot and do a load of work on the MBA (I only use MS word), what I want to happen is that the moment I return home and the iMac notices the MBA, the files that I have been working on will automatically sync with the files on the iMac. And also vice versa. Say I am working on the iMac all day and I have to go out for a meeting, is there a way of making sure that the MBA's documents folder is completely up to date with the files I have been working on with the iMac.

Basically, I want the MBA and the iMac to be synced so that when I switch machines my files are not all over the place.

How about it?!
(Thanks in advance!)

 

[killmoms]

There's no real document syncing strategy built-in to OS X, least of all an automatic one. Then again, with "Back to My Mac" as part of .mac and Leopard, why not just access your iMac's documents directly?

 

[blodwyn]

Say I am working on the iMac all day and I have to go out for a meeting, is there a way of making sure that the MBA's documents folder is completely up to date with the files I have been working on with the iMac.

Basically, I want the MBA and the iMac to be synced so that when I switch machines my files are not all over the place.

How about it?!
(Thanks in advance!)

If it's just your Documents folder (i.e. not your Music/Pictures/Movies Folders) the you may have space on your iDisk to keep and access your Documents there. If you enable your iMac and MBA to sync your iDisk automatically then you should get what you're looking for. The possible downsides are if you have a lot of large documents then the syncing might be annoyingly long, or you can get sync errors if you open and close files before the syncing has had a chance to complete.

 

[ash987]

Hi...

That sounds like a good idea. However, is it possible to access the idisk when away from a wireless signal?

 

[killmoms]

Hi...

That sounds like a good idea. However, is it possible to access the idisk when away from a wireless signal?

Of course not. He's saying you'd sync said iDisk to both the iMac and MBA, so the documents would be on both machines' hard drives. However, as he pointed out, if you have many LARGE documents, that might make sync times while on WiFi annoyingly long.

 

[blodwyn]

Hi...

That sounds like a good idea. However, is it possible to access the idisk when away from a wireless signal?

Yes. The iDisk auto sync will create a sparseimage of the iDisk on your MBA (and also your iMac) so you can access the files on your MBA when disconnected - it will just use the sparseimage copy. When you reconnect to a network the autosync will sync the sparseimage on your MBA with the remote iDisk, which will then in turn sync with your iMac. This is why you need to give the syncs time to happen before you open and close files, otherwise sync mismatches can occur.