Filters

Filters allow to selectively exclude and include files.

Filters can be changed in the Filters tab of the sync item settings.

Note: “file” is a generic term that refers to all kinds of files, such as regular files (text files, PDF files etc.) and directories.

You can add any number of filters that are checked against each file, from top to bottom.

To add a new filter, click on the + button and select one of the available scopes.

You can edit an existing filter by double-clicking it, or by selecting it and then pressing the edit button below the table.

Filters can be rearranged via drag and drop. For example, a Date Modified filter inside the All files filter could be dragged to the File or directory filter of a specific subfolder of the source to apply the Date Modified filter only to files within that subfolder.

Scope

File or directory

This filter matches a single file or directory identified by its full path. Selected files and directories are filtered on all sync bases, regardless which base the selected file is actually on.

Like the All files filter, a File or directory filter can have nested filters. When adding a new File or directory filter, it is added automatically to the nearest ancestor. All other filters are added either to the currently selected filter (or to its parent, if the currently selected filter is not a File or directory filter) or, if the selection is empty, to All files.

Tip: if you want to select a file that is hidden in the open panel, you can navigate to it by pressing the keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-G, which will open a dialog that allows you to manually enter the full path to navigate to. Alternatively, you can toggle the display of hidden files with the keyboard shortcut Command-Shift-.

Filename

This filter matches all files and directories with a specific name.

Operation can be set to one of the following:

Contains: the textual expression is matched anywhere in the filename.
Regular expression: allows for more complex matches. For additional help, see Wikipedia.

Date Modified

This filter matches all files whose modification date is in a given range.

This filter doesn’t match directories. A directory’s modification date doesn’t reflect if any of the sub-contents have changed (for example, if a file in a subdirectory is modified, only the parent directory’s modification date is updated, but not the grandparent’s).

Age (since date modified)

This filter matches all files whose age is in a given range.

Like the Date Modified filter, this filter doesn’t match directories.

Size

This filter matches all files whose size is in a given range.

This filter doesn’t match directories. A directory’s size can be ambiguous, particularly if some of the contained subfiles are excluded.

Hidden

This filter matches all files hidden in the Finder, including those whose name starts with a period.

Locked

This filter matches all files that are marked as locked in the Finder.

Alias

This filter matches aliases (symbolic links).

Symbolic links are a special kind of file that can be created by a program or the Terminal command ln -s. Aliases created in the Finder are a different kind of file that is not matched by this filter.

Mode

Exclude

Excluded files are never copied and, if the option Remove files not on source is enabled, not checked against the source to determine if they should be removed. They may still be removed if a parent directory is removed.

Include

By default, all files are included. To only include files matched by a specific filter and exclude everything else, you may do so by changing the Mode of the All files filter at the top of the list from Include to Exclude.

Note: all generic, inclusive filters (i.e. all filters except for File or directory with Mode set to Include) cause all directories to be scanned, since each directory can potentially contain matched files. To avoid scanning excluded directories altogether, try to omit generic, inclusive filters and use a File or directory filter with Mode set to Include instead.

Tip: as a means of grouping many sync items with a common parent directory and the same settings, you can exclude the source directory itself and include the subdirectories you want to sync. For example, if you only want to sync your Documents, Music and Pictures directories but ignore all other files contained in your home directory, select the home directory as the source, set the Mode of the All files filter to Exclude, then add a File or directory filter for each subdirectory (Documents, Music and Pictures) with Mode set to Include.