Sync two computers' folders (right click, add to insync) - creates two identically named folders in Drive

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Hi there. At the bottom of this post are three links to similar questions that are unanswered (links had to be deleted because I’m a new user). I’ll try my best to ask the question in a better way and keep things simple.

Basically, I have two Linux computers that I want to sync, preserving the paths on both computers. For simplicity’s sake, all I want to do is sync the following folder on my two computers:

  • /home/g105b/Documents

For technical reasons, the directory needs to be an actual directory and not any kind of symbolic link (for scripts to run successfully). Insync looks like Dropbox in the way it can “add” new folders for syncing, but it behaves very different (and feels like this simple task is not possible). Please can someone explain where I’m going wrong, or any workarounds?

Here’s what I’ve done:

  1. Install insync on work computer.
  2. Right click /home/g105b/Documents folder, add to insync.
  3. Let it sync, nice, done.
  4. Check the insync folder - it has created a symlink to the original folder, nice.
  5. Install insync on home computer.
  6. Right click /home/laptop/Documents folder, add to insync.
  7. Let it sync, nice, done.
  8. Check the insync folder - it has created a symlink to the original folder, nice.
  9. Check contents of folders - they are not the same.
  10. Check Google Drive - there are TWO Documents folders…
  11. ???

Please can someone help? I’ve just bought my license because my trial ran out (I intended to trial it ages ago but became too busy).

Thanks a lot,

Greg.

P.S. I’ve never edited a post in stereo before, it’s quite disorienting (dig at Discourse).

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After a few hours of failed attempts, I’ve found a fully repeatable method for achieving this. Please devs, make this a feature.

  1. Selective sync all the folders you want. These will go into the insync folder, not where you want them.
  2. Once sync is complete, pause insync.
  3. In the terminal, change directory to the insync directory. cd /home/g105b/.insync #or wherever your insync directory is
  4. Move the folders to where they need to live mv ./Documents /home/g105b/.
  5. Create a symbolic link back to the directory - this MUST be called the same as what it was when insync created it: ln -s /home/g105b/Documents .
  6. Resume insync… should all be working now.

It amazes me that these steps are required to use insync on multiple computers, but hey… it’s free, what else could you ask for.

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