On Windows, when rclone sync files, if there is a open files rclone will not just sync them, but it won't delete any files or folders on the remote server. I find that very inconvenient because you always have some programs running, like browsers or email clients. It will be good if rclone don't sync just the opened files and sync the other files and folders that are not related to them. On linux i think this is not a issue, but on Windows i find it to be a big disadvantage.
We could add a flag --skip-open-files say.
Let's say you backedup BIGFILE successfully once. On the second time you backup BIGFILE is open so rclone misses it out from the directory listing because you were using --skip-open-files. What will happen then is that rclone sync will delete BIGFILE on the remote which probably isn't what you wanted.
That's why rclone works the way it does (this behaviour was copied from rsync).
On linux you can read an open file. You can sometimes read an open file on Windows too depending on how the application opened it.
The ideal solution on windows is probably to use volume shadow services which @asdffdsa wrote a nice HOWTO on
So, if i use the flag --skip-open-files rclone will delete the BIGFILE on the remote server if it's open locally. Why does it have to delete it? Can it just leave it as it is?
You'd use copy rather than sync as you asked to 'sync' the files which mirrors source to destination.
Copy is not very convenient. It uploads new and modified files, but doesn't delete old files versions on the remote server. If i want to restore my firefox profile folder, for example, it will be a mess. Also, this will increase my storage quota.
It's up to you. I'm just informing you how copy works compared to sync. If you don't want things to be deleted, you would not use sync as it makes source and destination the same.
There is a Windows option above noted on how to use VSS to get rid of the open files situation so you have choices to make on how you want to address your situation.
Good luck!
if an application has a file open and locked, there is a good chance that the file is being written to.
and that that file, if copied, could be corrupted.
so rclone will overwriting a good file in the remote with a possible corrupted file.
in the past, when i was testing rclone to backup firefox,
i found that firefox itself and its database for passwords, history and bookmarks do not cause open file problems,
i use a batch script that will:
- rclone sync the firefox profile
- run firefox
you can read this to learn how easy it is to backup firefox
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Thanks, but this it not just about firefox. I guess i have to check my log files regularly and exclude files that are causing problems.
every program is different and sometimes you will need to tweak rclone.
i use fastcopy and 7zip and i need to tweak them as well.
I hope i can move soon to linux as my main OS. This will solve this issue for me.
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i able to run linux apps on windows using windows subsystem for linux.
you can run rclone, firefox and other apps.
You are probably using Windows 10. I am on Windows 7.
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