Folder Synchronization
In DeltaWalker Classic Free: the manual operations only. DeltaWalker Classic Free copies, moves, deletes and renames the entries you select, and sets their dates. One-click folder synchronization (Choose Sync Action, with its Update and Mirror operations) is part of the Pro and Oro editions (and of the legacy Standard edition).
You can synchronize two folders using:
- Manual operations, such as Copy, Move, and Delete, on individual or selected files and folders.
- One-click two-way synchronization operations: Update and Mirror.
Synchronizing Using Copy, Move, and Delete
You can reach any synchronization result with a combination of three basic operations: Copy, Move, and Delete.
The following example makes the Modified folder hierarchy the same as the Reference:
- Select and compare the folder hierarchies you want to synchronize.
- Files present only in the Reference folder are reported as deleted, and the orange status bar panel with a minus sign shows their count. Copy them to the Modified folder: right-click and choose Select > Deleted, then right-click one of the selected items in the Reference hierarchy and choose Copy Selected from Reference to Modified.
- Next, copy the changed files: right-click and choose Select > Changed, then copy the selection from Reference to Modified as in the previous step.
- Finally, delete the files present only in the Modified folder: right-click and choose Select > Added, then right-click a selected file in the Modified hierarchy and choose Delete Selected…, or press Delete.
The same commands are on the Edit > Copy/Move menu.
When a copy or move would replace an existing file or folder, DeltaWalker Classic asks first, in the Confirm File Replace or Confirm Folder Replace dialog: choose Replace, Replace All, Don’t Replace to keep that item, or Cancel. If you turn on Show Confirm Replace dialog only when Shift key is down under Appearance > Folder Comparisons, DeltaWalker Classic replaces older items without asking unless you hold down Shift; it still asks before replacing a newer item.
Before you overwrite files, make sure they don’t contain changes you want to keep. Two folder hierarchies are often changed independently, and both can contain valuable changes. The safest approach is to examine the changed files and, if necessary, merge them by hand: double-click a file in the folder comparison to open it in a file comparison.
Synchronizing Using Update and Mirror
Also called one-click synchronization, the Update and Mirror operations synchronize two folders in a single step:
- Update Reference: newer and orphan items in Modified are copied to Reference.
- Update Modified: newer and orphan items in Reference are copied to Modified.
- Update Both: newer and orphan items are copied from each side to the other.
- Make Reference same as Modified: the Reference folder is made identical to Modified.
- Make Modified same as Reference: the Modified folder is made identical to Reference.
To perform one of them, choose it from the Choose Sync Action menu on the folder comparison’s toolbar. Check the information shown above the comparison to make sure the number of items and the operations involved are what you expect, then click Sync.
Quitting While a Comparison or Synchronization Runs
If you quit DeltaWalker Classic while a folder comparison or synchronization is still running, the Exit DeltaWalker Classic prompt asks: “Folder comparisons or synchronizations are still running. Stop them and quit?” Click Stop and Quit to stop them and quit, or Cancel to keep DeltaWalker Classic open and let them finish.
macOS Resource Forks
A resource fork is part of a file on macOS file systems that stores structured data alongside the file’s ordinary content, its data fork.
DeltaWalker Classic supports resource forks as follows:
- Copy and move operations copy or move a file’s resource fork along with its data fork.
- The Permissions column of a folder comparison shows @ at the end for files with a resource fork (see the screenshot).
- The tooltip of a file with a resource fork shows the size of the resource fork (see the screenshot).
- Byte-by-byte comparison of files with resource forks compares the data forks and, if they are the same, the resource forks.
