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Deleting Files Older Than X Days

Posted on May 26, 2020 by in Best Practices

You can automatically delete files based on certain criteria with Syncovery. A frequently requested functionality is to delete files from a folder which are older than X days.

To delete files, you need to set up a job (profile) and mirror an empty folder to the destination using Exact Mirror Mode. For example, you can use a File Age filter to delete files older than 14 days only. You need to use Advanced Mode in Syncovery to do this.

After setting the job up with the correct filters, you need to test it in Attended Mode. Run the job manually and look at the Sync Preview to make sure it works correctly and deletes the correct files only. Then you can give it a schedule.

If you have thoroughly verified that the profile works 100% correctly, and does not delete any files that you want to keep, then go to Safety->Unattended and allow 100% deletions (because 100% of the older files are deleted).

To enable these deletions to occur in unattended mode, you also need to add a switch to the INI file. Add the following line to the [Main] section of the Syncovery.ini file (on Windows) in order to enable 100% deletions:

UnattendedDeleteAllIsOK_IfDelPercIs100=YES

Chaining Profiles (Running Profiles in Sequence)

Posted on June 12, 2018 by in Best Practices, Documentation

There are several ways to run jobs one at a time.

Running profiles with the scheduler running one job at a time

One way to run jobs one after another is to use the Scheduler. Give them a scheduled time and leave a minute between each profile. On the Scheduler tab sheet, click on the Tools and Settings button and uncheck “Start Profiles In Parallel”. Alternatively, go to the Program Settings dialog, tab sheet Advanced, and specify 1 for Max. simultaneous jobs.

Running profiles via manual invocation

For manual runs, select the profiles in the Overview, right-click the selection and choose “Run in Unattended Mode”. This will run them one after another, as opposed to “Run in Background”.

If you need Syncovery to do other things while the jobs are running, you can open Syncovery a second time.

Chaining profiles directly

Another way is to chain profiles. As an “after” command line in “Execute before/after” you can put:
RUN PROFILE Profile Name

This will start the next profile when the first one has finished, and so forth. The problem is that the chaining is always done, so it may be a problem if there is an occasion where you want to run only one of the chained jobs.

Using the command line

Yet another way is to use the Syncovery command line and invoke your jobs from a batch file or script:
Syncovery Command Line

Windows 10: Syncovery Update Required

Posted on May 14, 2018 by in Best Practices

Syncovery Update Required

For continued compatibility with recent Windows 10 updates, please make sure you update Syncovery to version 7.98d at least.

It is recommended to update Syncovery before installing any further Windows updates.

Syncovery 7.98d includes an updated Syncovery VSS Service to fix a potential compatibility issue that could cause the upgrade installation to fail and/or get stuck in a reboot loop. Or Windows might just boot up with a blank screen, or show a spinning mouse cursor instead of a login screen.

This happened only on some systems, but to be safe, please update Syncovery.

If you already updated Windows, that’s fine. In that case please update Syncovery too to avoid any potential problems in the future.

Questions? Please email support@syncovery.com.

Using Syncovery 8 with Amazon S3 Inventories

Posted on July 18, 2017 by in Best Practices

Syncovery 8 can use Amazon S3 Inventories. On the second tab sheet of the Internet Protocol Settings dialog, please choose “Use S3 Inventories”.

To make Amazon generate these Inventories, go to the AWS S3 Management Console and refer to the screenshot below.

Inventory Name: your free choice
Filters: empty, or specify the folder you need
Destination Bucket: must be the same bucket that is listed
Destination Prefix: must be empty

Using Google Nearline with Syncovery

Posted on June 16, 2016 by in Best Practices, Documentation

Since v8.05, Syncovery natively supports Google Cloud Storage. You can choose it in the protocol selection on the Internet dialog.

The native Google Cloud Storage API is highly recommended and more efficient than using the older XML (S3) API described below.

You can still use the Amazon S3 compatible API for Google Cloud Storage. In that case, choose S3 as protocol, and specify your bucket like this:

bucketname@storage.googleapis.com

You can get your Access ID and Secret Key via the Interoperability tab sheet of the Cloud Storage Settings page
https://console.cloud.google.com/storage/settings

Please don’t choose unsupported features like Reduced Redundancy, as they will cause errors.

See also
https://cloud.google.com/storage/docs/migrating

Using Multiple Accounts With Same Cloud Storage

Posted on November 15, 2015 by in Best Practices, Documentation

When you create several profiles using the same cloud storage, you will notice that they automatically connect to the same account. This affects OAuth cloud storage such as Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox etc.

However, it is also possible to use different accounts for different profiles.

Each cloud account needs to be identified on the Internet Protocol Settings dialog, using the Account (opt.) field. You could enter the email addresses there or anything else. What you enter does not directly mean anything, it is just a name under which the cloud authentication tokens are saved.

Then when you click the Browse button, an Internet Browser window will appear, asking you to authenticate the user. On this screen, the previous user may appear, so you need to click “Not me” or something like that in order to log the previous user out and log the new one in.

If a profile should be associated with a different account, just change the Account ID to something else, and you will have the chance to re-authenticate it.

If you want to completely re-assign your jobs, you can use the button “Forget Cloud Access Tokens” on the Program Settings dialog, tab sheet “Cloud”.

Google Docs protocol completely replaced with Google Drive

Posted on May 29, 2015 by in Best Practices, News

In May 2015, the older Google Docs API was shut down by Google, and it can no longer be used. It has been completely replaced with the newer Google Drive protocol.

To handle the situation, the new versions 7.17 and 7.20 beta 15 of Syncovery have been releaed. The Google Drive protocol can now fulfill all tasks that the obsolete Google Docs protocol could.

The main feature that had been missing before these updates was the conversion of native Google documents. This is now available, so that all existing tasks can be performed with the new Google Drive API.

Previous Google Docs jobs will automatically use document conversion where chosen. New jobs, and existing Google Drive jobs, need to have document conversion enabled if desired. The checkmark is on the second tab sheet of the Internet dialog. Note that the available file types for conversion have been updated on the Google Docs tab sheet.

Once a profile is switched over to the new Google Drive protocol, you will have to authenticate Syncovery in a browser window. The prompt will appear if you run the job manually in attended mode.

If you need to use several different user accounts in different profiles, this is entirely possible! Just make sure that each profile has a different Account ID shown on the Internet dialog. When the authentication page appears, make sure you log out of the current Google account and log back in with the next account and authorize Syncovery.

If you need to re-do the authentication, you can click the button “Forget cloud access tokens” on the Program Settings dialog, tab sheet “Cloud”.

Note that your Google accounts must “Allow users to install Google Drive apps”.

Rsync and Syncovery

Posted on June 2, 2014 by in Best Practices

Syncovery supports the Rsync protocol by using an rsync.exe command line utility. Here’s how to set it up:

On the Program Settings dialog, you need to specify which rsync.exe to use. There’s also a button to download an rsync for Windows installer.

In the profile, you click on the Internet button for one of the two sides of the sync. Choose Rsync as protocol. You can securely connect via SSH or use rsync directly (unsecured). The unsecured connection can be used within a LAN or VPN, for example.

When using it via SSH, you need to have a client certificate and configure it on the Certificates tab sheet, as well as choose it on the Security tab sheet.

Because of limitations of the rsync.exe command line, some features are not working. For example, Syncovery cannot delete any files via rsync.

Because of rsync limitations, it is often better to use SFTP/SSH. It can do block level copying, too, and also it can get a recursive listing similar to rsync (on Unix/Linux servers). The recursive listing checkmark is on the second tab sheet of the Internet/FTP dialog.

Please see the following page for details about block level copying with SFTP:
Block Level Copying

The limitation with block level copying and SFTP is currently that it does block level for uploads only.

Confirmations missing, deletions disabled and similar warnings

Posted on February 20, 2014 by in Best Practices, FAQ

When a job runs in unattended mode, there can be some conditions which have to be confirmed when the profile is configured. For example, file deletions have to be confirmed specially, in addition to configuring the sync operating mode to include deletions.

To give the confirmations, please edit your profile in Advanced Mode, go to the Safety section at the bottom and choose the tab sheet “Unattended Mode”.

For an Exact Mirror profile, you would usually make sure that the top four checkmarks are chosen and that the last one is not chosen (Special Safety Checks). The first four checkmarks allow things like replacing files and deleting files. The last checkmark would impose additional safety checks which can prevent file deletions, so you’ll want to remove that checkmark.

In addition, you should specify a percentage of files which may be deleted during a profile run. You should not set this to 100% unless you expect that nearly all files are regularly going to be deleted. This is a safety percentage. If more files than allowed need to be deleted, the program realizes that something is wrong and disables the deletions completely. This will protect you against rare error conditions like disk errors or network communication errors, which can sometimes cause empty folders to be reported on the source side. Due to the percentage limit, the program will not delete everything from the destination if suddenly the source seems to be empty, or nearly empty.

However, even if you do specify 100% for deletions, the program will never delete all files in order to protect your data. If the source side is empty, it will throw an error and refuse to delete everything from the destination. This should be a good safety measure for most use cases. Some customers, on the other hand, have use cases where deleting all files is a regular, normal requirement. These customers can disable the 100% deletion protection by adding the following line to the [Main] section of the INI file:

UnattendedDeleteAllIsOK_IfDelPercIs100=YES

(Add this only if you need to delete 100% of files in a destination folder in unattended mode!)

Keeping 5-7 Full Backup Copies of Your Data in Separate Folders

Posted on February 19, 2014 by in Best Practices, FAQ

There are different ways to keep several versions of your files on your backup storage. Firstly, in the profile under Versioning, you can specify to keep a number of
older versions for each file. Each file will be versioned independently, and the Restore Wizard can restore your newest data, or restore according to a specified target date in the past.

However, some customers prefer to have 5 to 7 complete and independent copies of their data. To achieve this, you can use the variable $WEEKDAY in the destination path. In that case, you would not use anything from the Versioning tab sheet.

This will keep seven days of complete folder copies, if the profile runs on every day of the week. It will cause your backup folders to be named Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. and the next week’s backup is simply going to re-use the same folder from the week before.

For example, your destination path could be like this:
D:\Daily Backups\$WEEKDAY

Use Exact Mirror Mode to make sure that the backup is always identical even though the folder is re-used. Under Safety->Unattended Mode, allow file deletions as well as overwriting newer files with older ones (which will hardly ever be necessary, but should be chosen).

See also: Variables to use in your sync paths

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