Being a desktop user for many years now, I recently bought a laptop so that I could work while on the move. Naturally all my files/folders were on my desktop and I had to copy certain folders whenever I knew I was going to be away .
The problem is that these days I use both my laptop and my desktop. And so whenever I work on one of them, I am compelled to copy the changed files/folders over to the other machine so that I could resume working from anywhere I wanted. After getting frustrated with this manual process, I decided to hunt for a file synchronization tool on the internet.
Most of them were “cloud based” sync software/services like Dropbox. But my purpose was rather simpler, I needed to synchronize files between two computers and not backup the files on a cloud. (putting your personal data on a cloud is a very bad idea, but that’s for another time.)
I found this simple tool from Microsoft (surprising huh?) called SyncToy. It does exactly what I need, Sync files between two computers. The interesting thing about this software is that it supports everything from Windows XP to Windows 7. So even if you have two computers that are running different versions of Windows, you should be able to synchronize files between the two.
Let me show you how to sync files between two computers that are running windows 7.
Please note that I assume both computers that you are trying to sync are in the same network (either LAN or Wi-Fi)
Step 1: Download and Install SyncToy 2.1 from here SyncToy Download
Step 2: Setup a “Folder Pair” – A folder pair is pair of 2 folders that you want to synchronize or want to keep in sync. To do this, go through the following steps:
2.1 Click on “Create New Folder Pair” button
2.2 Enter the path to the folders in the “left folder” and “right folder”
”Left Folder” – > Enter the path of the local folder – you can also choose the folder using the Browse button.
”Right Folder”-> In my case, I wanted to sync the folder called “projects” which was on the “D: Drive” of my desktop. So I entered “\IPAddressd$projects”
Tip – If your folder is in C drive of the target machine use C$ instead
2.3 Click on “Synchronize” button and hit Next
2.4 Enter a name for your folder pair – Use something that you can remember if you are creating several folder pairs and click Finish
Step 4: If you have entered the correct paths while defining folder pairs, you are almost there.
If you want to check which files have changed and will be copied between the machines, click “Preview”
Or to directly synchronize, click “Run”.
That’s it. The next time you need to synchronize, just open SyncToy and hit “Run”, your files should be synchronized between two computers.
If you have any questions or having difficulties with SyncToy, please post your question in the comments section below with some detail about your issue.
The problem is that these days I use both my laptop and my desktop. And so whenever I work on one of them, I am compelled to copy the changed files/folders over to the other machine so that I could resume working from anywhere I wanted. After getting frustrated with this manual process, I decided to hunt for a file synchronization tool on the internet.
Most of them were “cloud based” sync software/services like Dropbox. But my purpose was rather simpler, I needed to synchronize files between two computers and not backup the files on a cloud. (putting your personal data on a cloud is a very bad idea, but that’s for another time.)
I found this simple tool from Microsoft (surprising huh?) called SyncToy. It does exactly what I need, Sync files between two computers. The interesting thing about this software is that it supports everything from Windows XP to Windows 7. So even if you have two computers that are running different versions of Windows, you should be able to synchronize files between the two.
Let me show you how to sync files between two computers that are running windows 7.
Please note that I assume both computers that you are trying to sync are in the same network (either LAN or Wi-Fi)
Step 1: Download and Install SyncToy 2.1 from here SyncToy Download
Step 2: Setup a “Folder Pair” – A folder pair is pair of 2 folders that you want to synchronize or want to keep in sync. To do this, go through the following steps:
2.1 Click on “Create New Folder Pair” button
2.2 Enter the path to the folders in the “left folder” and “right folder”
”Left Folder” – > Enter the path of the local folder – you can also choose the folder using the Browse button.
”Right Folder”-> In my case, I wanted to sync the folder called “projects” which was on the “D: Drive” of my desktop. So I entered “\IPAddressd$projects”
Tip – If your folder is in C drive of the target machine use C$ instead
2.3 Click on “Synchronize” button and hit Next
2.4 Enter a name for your folder pair – Use something that you can remember if you are creating several folder pairs and click Finish
Step 4: If you have entered the correct paths while defining folder pairs, you are almost there.
If you want to check which files have changed and will be copied between the machines, click “Preview”
Or to directly synchronize, click “Run”.
That’s it. The next time you need to synchronize, just open SyncToy and hit “Run”, your files should be synchronized between two computers.
If you have any questions or having difficulties with SyncToy, please post your question in the comments section below with some detail about your issue.