FreeFileSync is a free folder comparison and synchronization tool for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux, with the support to both 32-bit and 64-bit editions on these platforms. The program can be installed as a standard program or as a portable application that doesn’t involve any installation process. You get the options to choice during the installation.
Steps to do folder comparison and sync
Step 1: Choose the left and right directories. You can treat the left one as the source and the right one as the destination but you can swap the sides as well using the double-side arrow in the middle.
Step 2: Click Compare button to compare them.
Step 3: Click the green gear button to check and change the sync options.
Step 4: Click Sync button to start Synchronization.
Comparison option
There are 2 options to do folder comparison, either based on File time and size or on the file content. You can change what to compare from the blue gear button.
Sync option
You can do folder sync in 4 different ways,
- Two way – a default option that do sync based on the changes on both size. Deletion, moves and conflicts are detected automatically using a database.
- Mirror – create a mirror back of the left folder to the right.
- Update – copy new and updated files to the right folder.
- Custom – make your own rules to sync.
You can also set the deleted files in 3 different ways as well, either Permanently, Recycle bin or versioning.
All settings above, including source and destination folder, settings to compare and sync, can be saved in a configuration file that can be opened later to re-run the compare/sync jobs. By this way, you can set up different configuration files for different computers or different folders with different sync setup, etc. With the portable capability, you basically can carry them all with you to wherever you go.
Some other unique features
- Sync both network shares and local disks
- Sync mobile devices, including Anroid, iPhone, Tablet, Digital camera, etc.
- Copy locked files
- Copy NTFS security permissions
- Detect conflicts and propagate deletions
- Binary file comparison
- and many more.
Verdict
FreeFileSync is a powerful Open Source folder sync tool that works on multiple platforms including Windows, Mac OS X, and various Linux. It can be very useful to those who have folders that are too large to Dropbox or OneDrive but still want to have a good backup.