Selective Sync: Reverting To Placeholders With Read/write Access

[AllenEllis]

Hi,

How are you supposed to revert to placeholder files when you have read/write access?

I've read these documents and still have a question:

• Selectively Syncing Folders and Files with BitTorrent Sync
• Selective Sync
• What Is A BTS File?

That last document indicates that you revert to placeholders by simply deleting the file, but then adds this oh-so-critical caveat:

If you have Read & Write access, deleting a placeholder removes it permanently from all peers.

That assumption will completely break my use case. How are you supposed to use this feature if you need read/write access?

I have lots of storage on my NAS but limited local storage. My plan is to store everything on the NAS and use Sync to sync any relevant folders while I work on them. After a project is done, I would like to remove it from local storage but obviously keep it on the NAS.

Is this something I need to hack my own solution and GUI for using the API? I really just need something as simple as Dropbox's implementation:

Thanks.

[RomanZ]

@AllenEllis

When your folder is synced selectively on desktop, each file can be in 2 states - a file and a placeholder. Deleting a file will only un-sync it from your current PC. Sync will shortly replace it with placeholder. Although, if you delete a placeholder, it indicates that you want to delete corresponding file from all other peers.

 

Alternatively, you can use Explorer extension: right-click on the file in Explorer and choose "Remove from this device" to revert it back to placeholder state.

[AllenEllis]

Got it, thanks for the clarification! I hadn't discovered the shell integration yet, I see now I can sync whole folders. Maybe I missed that in the docs?

 

Thanks!

Edited January 27, 2016 by AllenEllis

[B. Warren]

Allen, thanks for posting this question, and Roman, thanks for the clarification.  I too was unclear about the two step deletion when Selective Sync automatically infers RW access.  This placeholder behavior is perfect for a folder of GB movies that consume precious space on my workstation's SSD.

Edited February 4, 2016 by B. Warren