Smart update for documents folder?
 

Dave,

I found your post on how to copy a folder after hitting a wall with SD. Now, I understand that I have to put “ignore” * and “ignore .*” into the command section of the script and leave the area included scripts empty, right? I then would add the documents folder to be copied into the command section. The question is, what if there’re certain folders I would like to exclude from the documents folder? Do I need to put them BEFORE or AFTER the command to copy the documents folder?

Actually, rather than using "ignore *" and "ignore .*", just include the "Exclude all files" script in the 2nd tab. Then, you don't have to worry about the order.

(But, if you want to use the ignores, the commands are evaluated from top to bottom, so, if you ignore everything after you've "copied" something... it'll be ignored.)

Hey, I just hit the button here... that must have been the quickest response I ever got in any forum...:)

Just to clarify. When I use the “exclude all files” in the second tab I don’t have to use the “ignore *” and ”.*“ in the third tab. I then would only add a copy command for the documents folder in the third tab followed by several “ignore XYZ folder,” listing all the folders within the document folder that I want to be excluded from being copied. Did I get that right?

That's right, you don't have to use the ignores. You'd just add the copy command(s) you want, followed by any excludes within that you might need.

Do not forget that Smart Update treats your selections like a "volume". As such, your destination will ONLY have the files you select on it when you're done: as it says, it's just like an erase-then-copy, but faster.

Got it. Thanks for the lightning fast support! I did check the manual before posting and couldn’t find any section in there covering that particular problem. Not sure whether you get the question often but you might want to think about adding a paragraph to the manual.

I don't cover it in the User's Guide because, in general, it's not something that we generally recommend you do (select a single folder out of a whole drive). This way, I can get questions and use that to determine how many people are trying it, etc...

Glad I found this (and it might be good to add in the manual). I have a big drive partitioned and one partition is a full clone. However, on a smaller partition I want JUST the documents so I can sync them up with another machine. This trick did work like a charm but until I did a search here and found this answer, it was a lot of hit and miss (actually all misses) as I never had enough room on this small partition since far more stuff was being copied than I wanted. Anyway, I "get it" now and SD is working like a charm.

Minor snag. While I'm able to now back up documents in total, I can't "restore" them to the other drive. The boot disk is grayed out. I was able to use another utility (ChronoSync) to do the equivalent of a smart update which is what I'd like to do with SD.

IOW, I want to copy (clone) the documents folder on my main machine (Intel iMac) then "restore" that to the Powerbook I use for travel. When I come back, I want to copy (clone) the documents from the Powerbook and then "restore" only the newer files back on the iMac. Doable with SD and ChronoSync but I'd like to lose the later application.