Sync
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, and child 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, Workspace Administrators, and Folder Admins 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 job runs, Files.com lists the relevant folders on both the source and destination of the Sync and looks for files that are missing or where the size is reported to be different on the source and destination. In these cases, Files.com copies the file from the source to the destination. You can configure Syncs to delete the file from the source after a successful Sync.
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.
Replacing Existing Files
A Sync to or from a Remote Server transfers the replacement file as an upload. The upload replaces the destination file in place, so no separate delete appears in the logs. Some SFTP servers refuse to replace a file in place; for those servers, Sync deletes the existing file before writing the replacement.
A Sync with Files.com native storage on both sides deletes the existing destination file before copying the replacement. Files.com records that delete as a separate action in History Logs.
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, files are only stored on the remote server and not in Files.com. All file operations, including those performed by an Automation, are passed through to the remote server in real time.