First sync: choose before downloading

An account you have just connected downloads nothing on its own. HtkCloudSync first lists your Drive, shows you how much it weighs, and waits until you have chosen the folders to keep on the computer. That is what the “Choose folders to sync” status means.

The window

Right after “Account connected”, the window takes you to the “Folders” page of the new account. Until the listing is complete, it shows “Listing your cloud…”; on a large Drive this can take a few minutes. Meanwhile no size is shown and the estimate reads “Selection: size unknown (listing in progress…)”.

Once the cloud is listed, the page shows:

• the folder tree, each folder ticked and followed by its size;
• an estimate line, for instance “Selection: 1.5 GB — disk: 182.4 GB free on / — cloud: 15.1 GB used of 107.4 GB”;
• at the bottom, the selection summary and the Start syncing button.

Elsewhere in the window, the account carries the “Choose folders to sync” badge, the banner reads “…: choose the folders to keep on this computer” with the Choose folders button, and the “Accounts” page replaces Pause with Choose folders. The system tray indicator shows the same status. It is an invitation, not an alert: nothing runs until you decide.

Step 1: read the estimate

The estimate line puts three figures side by side: what your selection would download, the free space of the disk holding the local folder, and the space of your Drive as Google reports it (with the share of the Drive trash when it is not zero). It is recomputed at every tick.

Step 2: untick what should not come

Untick the folders that have no business on this computer: archives, raw videos, photos from another era. Expand a folder to refine inside it; a checkbox in the intermediate state means that only part of the folder is kept. The checkbox rules are those of the Synced folders page.

If the selection exceeds the free space, the estimate turns red with the message “Not enough free space on this disk: uncheck folders until the selection fits.”, and the start button stays disabled until the selection fits.

Step 3: start

Click Start syncing. The button is active even if you unticked nothing; it only waits for the estimate to be available (“Estimating the selection size…” while it is computed).

The “First sync started” message appears, the account moves to “Syncing…”, and the “Activity” page shows each file as it arrives, with a progress bar for large files. At the end, the status becomes “Up to date”.

The service checks one last time before starting: listing complete, and a selection that fits in the free space. If it refuses, the reason appears at the bottom of the window and nothing starts; your selection stays saved.

Important: as long as the first sync has not started, changing the checkboxes starts nothing and removes nothing. You can close the window, come back later, change your mind: the account waits.

What if the local folder is not empty?

Files already present in the local folder are compared with the cloud: a file identical on both sides is recognised without transfer; a file present on one side only is copied to the other; two files with the same name but different content are both kept, one under a conflict-copy name. Nothing is deleted.

An empty Drive

If your Drive contains nothing, there is nothing to choose: the first sync starts without waiting and sends the content of the local folder.

Note: the same step exists on the command line, for a session without a window; see Command line.