First time selective syncing. Much more is showing up in feed as "Added"

[Greg_F]

I am trying to use this for the first time. I have green checkmarks on only three folders inside a bigger folder. These folders and their contents are all that I want to sync. None of the other folders are green or checked, and the higher folders are yellow, as one would expect. I only want to sync those three folders.

But when I run the sync, I’m seeing in the feed that many files and folders are being “added” that are inside the top level folder. They already exist in google drive and on the local drive. But I don’t want them synced. Is this a bug or is it merely indexing what is there? On another tab is says there are 95,000 files queued. That definitely sounds like more than the three folders contents. This is critically important business stuff, so i have paused the sync until I get confirmation that no unintended files are being messed with.

Windows 2012 Server, on one of it’s internal drives.

[mia]

Hi @greg_F,

We use the term “add” for addition as well as file-matching. Sorry for the confusion-- we’ve taken note of this. Rest assured that the files will not be synced unless you prompt them to. It will also be safe to resume syncing for the selected files.

If you observe any issues in the coming days, please don’t hesitate to email us at support@insynchq.com. Thanks!

[Greg_F]

Hi

Thanks and I’m glad my comments were helpful. Based on my experience, I would expect to see words like “indexing” or something like that, and maybe even a popup that explains only files selected for synchronizing will actually sync.

Another feature I like with synchronizing is the ability to synchronize in one direction. Usually indicated with arrow symbols. In my use case, I only want files going from the windows server to the google drive, not the reverse. I’d also like the option to get granular and skip or overwrite, possibly.

[Greg_F]

I’m sorry to report it’s not working as expected/intended. The source directory is:
D:\Workgroup\NIF\DCUsers\

The google drive destination is:
My Drive > 1NIF > DC >

The subfolders I want to sync are \dmp\ \deposits\ and \raiser’s edge\

InSync is creating a directory on on the server (the source) that looks like this: D:\Workgroup\NIF\DCUsers\1NIF\DC with the subfolders inside. This is undesired. I don’t even want google drive syncing back to the server, but I don’t think your software gives this option. And the lack of directional options shouldn’t be a problem, since the files already exist on the server.

But this result is no good. That creates a loop with superfluous duplicated folders on the source. I need those three directories mapped with each other. The file structures already exist as they are on source and destination. It’s a large organization and I can’t change the file structure.

I’m under a lot of pressure to get this working. Please tell me this is possible.

[Hawk]

Hmmm… I’m gonna say this is the expected behavior of Insync (or any Google Drive sync client), but you made a user error.

In Insync “Folder Settings”, did you set the “Default sync folder” to “D:\Workgroup\NIF\DCUsers” ? Because this sync folder is supposed to correspond to “My Drive” on the cloud.

You’re probably going to have to do some gymnastics with symlinks and selective sync to make it work in the way you want it to.

[Hawk]

Because the path in the cloud is different from the local path (“1NIF\DC” vs “NIF\DCUsers”), there’s no way you can use Insync “inplace”. So symlinks have to be involved.

What I suggest you do next:

1. Pause sync (if you haven’t already), exit Insync. Check that both files on the local server and in the cloud are in good order. Remove unnecessary duplicates manually.

2. Delete Insync’s user data (%AppData%\Insync %AppData%\Insync\dbs) folder to re-initialize Insync (as if it’s just been freshly installed).

3. Restart Insync, sign in, but when you’re setting up, set the “sync folder” to somewhere completely outside of the folders you want to sync. For example, set the sync folder at:
   D:\Insync

4. Also during the setup, don’t select anything in Google Drive to sync. Sync NOTHING!

5. Now, follow this following post of mine to selectively re-sync the three folders
   Except, replace Step 6
   6. Move your local folder into its intended location in Insync folder.
   with
   6. Create symlinks to your local folders at their intended locations in the Insync folder
   Specifically, this means you should create the following symlinks:
   D:\Insync\1NIF\DC\dmp
   D:\Insync\1NIF\DC\deposits
   D:\Insync\1NIF\DC\raiser’s edge
   where “1NIF” and “DC” are real (but almost empty dummy) folders, and
   “dmp”, “deposits”, and “raiser’s edge” are symlinks to the real folders you want to sync.

[unofficial how-to] Resync existing files/folders without duplicates

Sometimes we need to resync a folder that was selectively unsynced. We have the local data, and we know it's in sync with (or very close to) the cloud version. We don't want Insync to download everything from the cloud. Many users tried that and experienced lots of problems, in particular the duplicates problem - "filename (2)" are created all over the places. Here I'm sharing a method / workaround that's been very effective in my own use of Insync. Before we begin, make sure Insync statu…

[Hawk]

I just tested latest Insync version’s resync capability, turns out it’s got much better than it used to be (at least during initial setup). So you don’t need to read the thread I posted in my previous reply.

Simply:

1. Exit Insync. Cleanup Folders. Delete %AppData%\Insync\db %AppData%\Insync\dbs

2. Create empty folder D:\Insync (or any other location that’s outside of your main data folder)

3. Create symlinks to the three folders you want to sync at
   D:\Insync\1NIF\DC\dmp
   D:\Insync\1NIF\DC\deposits
   D:\Insync\1NIF\DC\raiser’s edge

4. Start Insync. During the initial setup, set “D:\Insync” as your default sync folder.

The latest version of Insync should automatically know only three folders should be synced.

[Greg_F]

Hey Hawk thank you! I’m going to give this a go!

[Greg_F]

Hi So close and yet so far. Plus the anxiety of screwing up a corporate file share lol.

The sym link is properly set up. But files and folder “created by InSync” started populating in MyDrive>NIF>DC, definitely in the wrong place, so I quit InSync and deleted the “dbs” folder and started again.

I started over with selective syncing, since my set up wasn’t “smart enough” to automatically sync only those folders. Right away I had “incoming shares” that were incorrect folders. Perhaps vestiges of starting up before I could select only the three folders? Or not. I don’t know!

And heartbreakingly, I see this on the Errors section of InSync:

I will have egg on my face tomorrow if I can’t get this sorted out. I hope you’re able to help me with that!

In the incorrect incoming shares I selected “don’t sync”. I have paused InSync again and left it as is.

Thanks for trying.

[Greg_F]

Update: after I caught my breath, I canceled the wrong incoming shares, and I hit retry on those weird errors, and I think it’s working. It’s working in Deposits, anyway. I think. I’ll keep monitoring.

[Greg_F]

One concerning item is that the number of queued items is climbing. It’s at 60K and rising. Windows says the number of files 29,000 and the number of folders is 3,500. I hope this thing isn’t getting ready to blow up in my face. UPDATE: number is decreasing now. Hopefully this works out.

[Hawk]

If you have deleted %AppData%\Insync\db %AppData%\Insync\dbs and started all over as I described, only three folders should be synced. You can double check it in the “Files”/“My Drive” tab in Insync. Only these three should have a green check.

The large number of files in queue is expected, and is nothing to worry about in and of itself.
Insync will go through all of the files in Google Drive, regardless of how you set it up. This has to do with how Insync works and how Google Drive organizes its files. But it doesn’t mean all files scanned will be synced.

[Greg_F]

ah okay. that makes sense. thanks.

By the way just for accuracy sake when helping future newbies, I believe it’s \dbs not \db.

[Hawk]

Yeah, you’re right. I was a bit careless. Corrected.

[Greg_F]

It’s not a complaint!

Apparently if I run this as a service or even use task scheduler, the GUI isn’t accessible. Is there no way to get this running in case of reboot and have the graphical interface?

Also for anyone reading this who doesn’t know how to make sym links: https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/ (for a folder I think you want to use the /D switch)