Alias files and folders - shift-Z

Feature requests
#1

Hello,

It seems that insync does not sync the multiple copies of a given file or folder. In Google Drive, one can use shit-z on a file or folder (web interface) to create an alias of that file or folder elsewhere - which is very useful because there are often several places to store a file. So this alias possibility is very interesting.

With the Google sync utility, the multiple copies are synced locally, which is the desired way of working (one wants to access files and folders in whichever location they are, and since they are synced, the multiple local versions are always kept in sync): http://note.io/1ypkpNR

With insync, they are not: http://note.io/1a6EL9t

Vincent

2 Likes
#2

@VincentKeunen Right now, we don’t support it (multiple parents), but there are already some users that requested it and we’ve already planned doing this.

Thank you. :smile:

1 Like
#3

Great. Any idea when this will work? When one uses shift-z (so very much useful…), it’s difficult to find files locally because they are not where you expect them to be. It’s also pretty difficult to go back to the web version, search for the file, look where it is (fortunately the web version of drive displays the multiple locations of a given file), then go back to your local disk and look in the other location. Another nuisance: if I want to archive the folder’s files in a unique zip, files are missing… :-/

#4

we don’t have yet an ETA for the release, but it is on our to do list. Thank you for your understanding.

#5

I second this. I use this feature a lot. When a file in my Drive has several parent folders, searching for the file on my insync folder is painful. A possible implementation could be to create in each parent folder a symbolic link to a single (and hidden) sync’ed file, and setup your daemon to handle the various events properly (e.g. trash the file in the Drive whenever the last link is deleted locally).

Best,
Christophe

#6

Thanks for seconding this…

Since there is a sym link feature on MacOS, Linux and Windows, I think it’s easier and safer to create link files with the OS specifics on each platform. It probably depends on how GDrive manages this internally.

But you’ll do a better design than us… :smile:

Cheers

#7

I’ll +1 you on this @VincentKeunen.

Thank you.

#8

+1

Lots of use cases for this feature I’m sure. For me, I think I’d be able to selectively sync one top level folder that acts like the Starred view in Google Drive.

#9

I’ll +1 you on this request :smile:

#10

Actually, currently there is partial support for this - and it is buggy and creates a risk of data lost. Please bear with me as the explanation will need to be long.
We use the Shift+Z feature for a kind of selective sync. We have the following structure in GDrive for client projects:

Projects folder
– Client Folder
-----Client Project 1
-----Client Project 2
…

We also have a folder called “Current projects” in the root directory. When we need to work on a project, we just Shift+Z it to the “Current projects” folder, which automatically syncs it.
You will alsk “Why don’t we use selective sync?” Because Selective sync would mean having to go down 2 extra folders (Projects folder and client folder) to access each project, and these are a lot of extra clicks.

You can’t really recreate this with symlincs without creating one for each project - which is not the ideal workflow.

Now to the porblem - while adding a folder to “Current projects” does get InSync to sync it down correctly, removing it (clicking the X next to the folder name in the sidebar in Google Drive) does not remove the local files and preservs the link. The files do not appear int he folder in the web interface, but remain on the hard drive. If you delete the local copy, this deletes all Gdrive copies of the file or folder.

#11

Insync, please give an ETA for this base feature (multiple parents). Or, explain how I was supposed to guess from your homepage that this feature was missing in your product. Thanks.

#12

Hi, have you news about this feature ?

#13

Please sync identical files in multiple folders on gdrive as hard links on the local machine. Is there any news about this feature request?

Thanks!

#14

+1, pls implement this feature!

#15

Wondering if there has been any updates to this. I would like to put in my +1 for this request.
Does version 1.4 add anything like this?

#16

any news on this one?

#17

I would also love some news on this feature request.

#18

is there an update on this feature request?