Remove a file from mobile with selective sync

[jrlacharnay]

Hello,

I would like, from my Android tablet running Resilio Sync, to delete a file from a folder in "selective sync" mode, and this deletion to be propagated to my other devices.

Currently, if I'm not wrong, the only way to achieve this, is to delete the file from the Sync application.

Indeed, deleting the file from any other application, like the file explorer, delete the file from the device only. The deletion is not propagated.

This "problem" has already been discussed here:

Is there any way to achieve this without manually deleting the file from the Sync application? Even if it involves scripting.
Or to disable the "on demand" mode? I don't mind editing internal settings files.

Just to explain, here is my use case. I have several GB of pictures stored on a NAS (with Sync running), spread over several sub-folders. And I would like to manage them from my tablet. By manage, I mean: see, modify, rename, and delete. Because I cannot sync the whole folder to my tablet (size is too big), I kept the selective syncing on and I sync to my tablets only the sub-folders I would like to work on. While sorting the pictures, with a third party app, I very often decide to delete a specific picture. But to propagate the deletion, then I need to switch to Sync app and manually delete the pictures from here. Not very convenient...

This behavior is different from Dropbox, for example, where a deletion of a file inside a folder "selectively synced" is propagated to the other devices.

Many thanks for any advice!

Jean-Remy

Edited January 26, 2017 by jrlacharnay

[Helen]

To propagate deletion to other peers you need to delete the file from Sync app when Sync is in Selective Sync mode. This is by design, and I don't think the logics will be changed. 
The thing is that on Selective Sync shares (any platform) when you delete a file, it reverts to a placeholder so that you can later re-download it.  You need to delete the placeholder itself so that the file is removed from all peers. This is how Selective Sync is designed to work. 
On android, placeholders to not appear on file managers to reduce the load on the phone. Thus when you delete the file from a file manager, it still reverts to a placeholder, but just does not appear on the file manager. instead it's represented as a grayed out file in Sync ui. And you need to remove the placeholder from Sync ui. 

[jrlacharnay]

Okay, thank you for your reply. This is what I was afraid of

I was expecting to find a way to automatize this process (to avoid doing the manual deletion in the Sync app).

[jrlacharnay]

Don't you think it could be a feature that can be implemented in the future?

My use case is quite common I think. I want the full synchro of a subfolder B of a synced folder A, but I've not enough space on my device to fully download the folder A.

[Helen]

15 minutes ago, jrlacharnay said:

I want the full synchro of a subfolder B of a synced folder A,

in Sync tap and hold B subfolder -> three dots in right upper corder - > Sync. All files currently located in B subfolder will be synced. 
If you on other peers later add new files to B, then on the phone you need to do that ( three dots in right upper corder - > Sync) again. 

[Tim77]

You haven't addressed jrlacharnay's problem at all. This is a serious deficiency in selective sync and makes the feature much less useful to me and I'm guessing others.

I have an NAS with terabytes on it. Full sync mostly isn't an option. Selective sync would be perfect if it worked the way I think it should but the way it handles deletes is not only unsatisfactory, but unintuitive. In other words, when I make a selective sync, I expect all aspects of sync to work on that selection, including deletes that propagate back to the connected machine.

The answer of deleting the file in the Sync app instead of doing a normal OS delete is unworkable. Imagine working through a photo folder with a 1000 files in it. It's a huge waste of time to have to flip between the OS folder and the app every time I want to delete a file, not to mention error-prone.

I really hope Resilio rethinks this.

[Helen]

on desktops Selective Sync works a bit differently, you can delete the file form other devices right away, use "remove from all devices" option . Please check the guides, thanks. 

 

[eddyizm]

I signed up to the forum looking for an answer to this exact problem I have. My use case is different but the same frustration with how this is designed to work.

As Helen mentioned, this does appear to work differently on desktops. I have a mac and windows machine synced up and once I delete a file from one folder, it gets propagated to the other machine. This works by anyway I delete the file. 

This is the behavior I was expecting on the mobile device. I have been using one drive and dropbox to handle my mobile syncing but wanted to automate something so I thought I'd try out resilio sync. 

My use case is as below (different than the OP but the same problem) 

I have a scheduled task that gets new videos from a youtube channel, converts them to mp3, and then moves them to a synced folder (previously this was dropbox), send myself an email that new episodes are available. 

I now am able to download the files directly to my android device which is mapped to a folder that my podcast application monitors. 

I get to enjoy the podcast/youtube video on my commute and once it's played, the application deletes the file (after 24 hours) 

This unfortunately does not work because the file is deleted by the app and not in resilio sync so I have no idea what I have already played and what i have not listened to. 

This could easily be a flag for mobile devices, the place holder feature is nice but we need to be able to delete since it is monitoring a folder and resync. Perhaps make the flag choose the mobile device as the Parent or Master folder. 

Otherwise, I might as well use dropbox instead. 

[Helen]

either disable Selective Sync on phone, or delete the file from within Sync app. 

Again: if Selective Sync is enabled  and you delete the file from the folder (using a file manager), it's converted to a placeholder (this is how Selective Sync works). To propagate deletion to other peers you need to delete the placeholder itself.
On the phone placeholders do not appear in file managers (to ease load on the device) so to propagate deletion to other peers delete the placeholder from the app.
On desktops placeholders do appear in a file manager, thus you can either delete this or use "Remove from all devices" context menu. 

[Tim77]

On 2/21/2018 at 8:02 PM, eddyizm said:

This unfortunately does not work because the file is deleted by the app and not in resilio sync so I have no idea what I have already played and what i have not listened to. 

This could easily be a flag for mobile devices, the place holder feature is nice but we need to be able to delete since it is monitoring a folder and resync. Perhaps make the flag choose the mobile device as the Parent or Master folder. 

Otherwise, I might as well use dropbox instead. 

It's definitely an issue. Let's face it; selective sync as implemented is just a clever hack. Unfortunately, it's clear that Resilio has no intention of making it work properly, so I find that it's really not very useful for my applications. I end up doing only full syncs of very specific and and relatively small folders. Not ideal, but it is what it is.

[Kacang]

This from Helen helped address this issue:  "in Sync tap and hold B subfolder -> three dots in right upper corder - > Sync. All files currently located in B subfolder will be synced. 
If you on other peers later add new files to B, then on the phone you need to do that ( three dots in right upper corder - > Sync) again. "

In other words, 1) after deleting a bunch of photos and videos in "Gallery", etc on your mobile device, 2) go into Resilio on your mobile, 3) hold down to highlight the folder you want to sync immediately, 4) click the three buttons in the corner and press "sync" option. 

It immediately deleted all the placeholders and files on my desktop. Kind of manual which is annoying, but it salvages the usefulness of this product.