Microsoft’s SyncToy is a great, free, way to backup folders on your PC. Synctoy enables you to perform various types of backups - copy, move, rename, and delete files between folders and computers.

Once you have installed and launched SyncToy you’ll be presented with the main window (image below). The first thing you need to do is to create a new folder pair. A folder pair means the two folders between which you will move data that you wish to duplicate. You then need to choose the action that you wish to perform on the newly created folder pair. The actions are as follows:

Synchronize: New and updated files are copied both ways. Renames and deletes on either side are repeated on the other.

Echo: New and updated files are copied left to right. Renames and deletes on the left are repeated on the right.

Subscribe: Updated files on the right are copied to the left if the file name already exists on the left.

Contribute: New and updated files are coped left to right. Renames on the left are repeated on the right. No deletions.

Combine: New and updated files are copied both ways. Nothing happens to renamed and deleted files.

The ideal actions for backing up data are either Echo or Contribute. The only difference being that Echo will delete files from your backup, and contribute will only ever modify and add new files, but never delete them from your backup.

After you have set up you folder pair and chosen you backup action you can then run the backup by clicking ‘Run’.

For more information refer to Microsoft’s SyncToy page.

Bookmark this article to:

Hide Sites

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 19th, 2007 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Quick Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.