Syncing two folders?

[Imola Ghost]

I've got an external USB hard drive that I keep in my car (for music) and what I'd like to do is bring it in to my MBP and sync it up with my music folder.

Is there a program or can OSX sync my USB music to my music folder on my laptop?

 

[brijazz]

I recommend ChronoSync:

http://www.econtechnologies.com/pages/cs/chrono_overview.html

 

[Gregg2]

Is there a program or can OSX sync my USB music to my music folder on my laptop?

Apparently there's one called Lion that will do that.

 

[Imola Ghost]

Apparently there's one called Lion that will do that.

So, this is something that Apple is integrating into the OS natively?

 

[Gregg2]

So, this is something that Apple is integrating into the OS natively?

Say, you're pretty good at reading between the lines. Oh wait, there was only one line...

 

[mobilehaathi]

If you are comfortable with the terminal, you can type

rsync -rtuv ~/Music/ /DestinationHD/

to sync your ~/Music/ folder to the HD.

 

[Imola Ghost]

Apparently there's one called Lion that will do that.

Got Lion, where's my folder sync at?

 

[Imola Ghost]

If you are comfortable with the terminal, you can type

rsync -rtuv ~/Music/ /DestinationHD/

to sync your ~/Music/ folder to the HD.

I'm not comfortable at all with Terminal. Someone mentioned that Lion had a folder sync feature but not sure where it's located.

 

[brijazz]

Apparently there's one called Lion that will do that.

Someone mentioned that Lion had a folder sync feature but not sure where it's located.

There's no "sync folder" in Lion. I don't know what @Gregg2 was talking about.

Anyways, if you want automated syncing of two folders, take a look at Dropbox. It's reliable... install Dropbox on both machines, and the folder it creates for itself will sync between machines.

 

[Imola Ghost]

There's no "sync folder" in Lion. I don't know what @Gregg2 was talking about.

Anyways, if you want automated syncing of two folders, take a look at Dropbox. It's reliable... install Dropbox on both machines, and the folder it creates for itself will sync between machines.

I've got Dropbox on my MBP. But the folders I'm wanting to keep in sync are:

1) my iTunes music folder
2) an external USB hard drive with my music on it

I add a lot of music and sometimes forget what I'll I've added and I've like to find a way instead of formatting my USB hard drive and then just copying over my entire iTunes music folder.

I'd like to be able to just plug in my external usb hard drive and fire up a syncing application and let it do its work. So with saying that I don't think Dropbox can do what I need for this.

 

[brijazz]

the folders I'm wanting to keep in sync are:

1) my iTunes music folder
2) an external USB hard drive with my music on it

Gotcha. I recommended ChronoSync in an earlier reply, and stand by the recommendation. I use it to do exactly what you want to do... backup my iTunes library to an external drive.

It's got lots of options (which can be overwhelming... if you want drop-dead simplicity, this might not be the software for you!), but it's very stable and gets the job done.

Downside: not free

 

[Imola Ghost]

Gotcha. I recommended ChronoSync in an earlier reply, and stand by the recommendation. I use it to do exactly what you want to do... backup my iTunes library to an external drive.

It's got lots of options (which can be overwhelming... if you want drop-dead simplicity, this might not be the software for you!), but it's very stable and gets the job done.

Downside: not free

I looked at that and started to look at it again. I'm going to download it and try it out and if I like it I'll buy it. Thanks for your help!

 

[Gregg2]

There's no "sync folder" in Lion. I don't know what @Gregg2 was talking about.

Sorry for the bad information. I thought I'd read that somewhere. Or maybe my brain just confused that with some other common Mac OS complaint I read was addressed by Lion.

 

[The Other Steve]

Harder to Sync files in Lion

It gets worse, Lion no longer has the "Skip File" option in the Copy diolog box when dragging-n-dropping files from one folder to another. This makes it difficlut to make sure "Folder B" has all the files from "Folder A" by dragging the files over. In the past, all you had to do was click on Skip File's with the "Apply to All" box checked and it would copy or move all the new files while leaving the old files alone. Not any more.

 

[Gregg2]

There's no "sync folder" in Lion. I don't know what @Gregg2 was talking about.

Sorry for the bad information. I thought I'd read that somewhere. Or maybe my brain just confused that with some other common Mac OS complaint I read was addressed by Lion.

Oops! I have to apologize again. According to MacWorld, September 2011 page 48:
"Drop a folder onto another one with the same name, and the Finder will offer to merge their contents..."

Would that not be what was meant by "sync"?

Maybe it's really "merge". But, wouldn't merge + merge = sync ? So, I did read that somewhere else, just as I thought initially.

 

[papo2]

I'm not comfortable at all with Terminal. Someone mentioned that Lion had a folder sync feature but not sure where it's located.

Use this free app called arRsync.

it's a simple interface, this way you do not need to use the CLI.

I use it all the time to create backups of some flash drives with one click.

 

[old-wiz]

"Drop a folder onto another one with the same name, and the Finder will offer to merge their contents..."

Would that not be what was meant by "sync"?

I think that refers to the older problem where if you tried to move a folder onto another one of the same name it would replace the entire folder. IIRC Lion is supposed to actually make sure that the source folder doesn't replace the target folder. I don't think it tries to merge the individual files - that would be a mess. What if you had a database that you designed and only you knew the exact structure - an attempt by the OS to merge the two databases would result in garbage.

 

[Gregg2]

I thought the idea of a merge was to add new files to the target folder without losing files in it that are not in the source folder. I've never had the impression that it altered files, only copy and keep.

 

[frangipani]

Mobile Sync In Lion

is available for domain accounts via the users and groups control panel - mobile account...

http://www.physics.ox.ac.uk/it/centralmac/HomeSync.htm

 

[itlstudios]

AASync

I use AASync and it works great. Plus it's free if you use it on locally accessed drives like thumb drives or external HDs.

http://www.aasync.com

 

[spencers]

I use AASync and it works great. Plus it's free if you use it on locally accessed drives like thumb drives or external HDs.

http://www.aasync.com

Thank you SO much! rsync was giving me grief, but it looks like this will work for syncing two external hard drives!