Syncs
The Files.com Sync feature transfers files between two locations, either on a recurring basis, or when started by an Automation.
Sync works with folders in your Files.com site, remote servers, Child Sites, and folders shared through Connected Sites. A Sync transfers files from a source location to a destination location, with filters for including and excluding files and customizable start times.
Use a Sync for one-way replication between two folders. Use an Automation when the workflow needs renaming, multiple destinations, or actions beyond replication. Syncs & Automations compares the tradeoffs, including remote-server reliability and destination permissions.
A Sync can run in the Default Workspace. For a deployment with multiple teams or environments, use Managed File Transfer to choose where connections and Syncs belong before creating them.
Remote Server connections include cloud storage, content collaboration systems, file-transfer servers, and on-premise systems. Connect the locations first, then create a Sync with the source, destination, file filters, and trigger.
Site Administrators and Workspace Administrators can create and manage Syncs within their permitted scope.
How Syncs Work on Files.com
A Sync can run at an automatic interval, on a schedule, or when started by an Automation. Automatic interval timing depends on your subscription plan: Syncs can run as often as every 15 minutes on the Power plan and every 1 to 5 minutes on an Enterprise plan. A larger interval runs the Sync less often.
An automatic-interval Sync includes a Synchronization interval (in minutes) setting, which you can change to increase the time between successive runs for that Sync.
When a Sync runs, it compares source and destination listings and selects missing files or files whose reported sizes differ. It then copies the selected files. Transfer Behavior explains destination replacement, validation, and whether sources are kept or deleted.
A Sync preserves the source folder structure for the files it transfers. Its include and exclude patterns determine the scope, and its empty-folder setting determines how empty folders are handled.
Files may be transferred in any order, and parallelism is used where possible.
To limit the maximum parallelism used by Files.com with remote servers, you can use a setting on the Remote Server to define the maximum number of parallel connections. This is useful for avoiding errors caused by a remote server that has limitations on the number of concurrent connections that it can accept.
Monitoring Sync Runs
Review Sync logs to see what transferred, what was skipped, and which files failed. Use a dry run to inspect a new Sync before allowing it to transfer files.
To get notified when a sync run completes or fails, use Event Channels or admin email preferences. Event Channels deliver per-event notifications to webhooks, Slack, Teams, SNS, Pub/Sub, and email targets, and cover success, failure, partial failure, and skipped outcomes. Admin email preferences cover failures and partial failures only, batched per user with exponential backoff.
Sync vs. Mount
A Sync creates a separate copy and updates it when the Sync runs. A Remote Server Mount instead exposes the remote files directly through a Files.com folder. Use a Mount when people or workflows need to act on the remote files themselves, and a Sync when they need a replicated copy.
With a Mount, the working files remain on the remote server. File operations, including those performed by an Automation, act on that storage. Buffered Uploads can temporarily stage incoming data on Files.com and report upload completion before onward delivery finishes; a mount is still not an independent retained copy.