For the former, Microsoft does offer a different tool, FolderShare, but by requiring users to manually sync all folders leaves SyncToy behind other free backup apps. SyncToy options were: Active for run all All files included No files excluded Do not check file contents Include read-only files Include hidden files Include system files Backup older files (send to Recycle Bin) All subfolders included SyncToy run took 00:00:02:843. However, the two feature omissions are hard to ignore: you can't synchronize across the Internet, and there's no scheduler.
SyncToy also offers up a preview, preventing accidental loss of data. Synchronize is bidirectional Contribute works like Echo but it won't delete files removed from the Left folder Subscribe only updates files in common that have been updated and Combine merges Synchronize and Contribute so that files are updated in both directions, but none are deleted. Echo works like a standard one-way sync, copying all files from Left to Right. I want a quicker way to do this without recopying the whole. Labeled as Left and Right, it will then ask you to choose from one of five synchronization methods. What program or Tool do you use to sync files and folders between multiple PCs and external Hard Drives I currently delete and then re copy my folders but the folders are huge almost 100GiB each so it takes about an hour each folder. It will also check the files in the target. Robocopy will be able to check the target directory and delete files that are no longer in the main tree, instead of copying all files from one directory to another. Unlike Xcopy, Robocopy is used to mirror or synchronize directories.
The first time you run it, SyncToy will guide you through creating a pair of linked folders. Robocopy uses MIRRIORING, XCopy does not. Part of the Windows XP PowerToys add-ons, this tool makes it easy to keep folder contents identical on one machine or across a network. If you're looking for a convenient, uncomplicated, and stable synchronization tool, you could do much, much worse than Microsoft's SyncToy.