Mapping Syncplicity folders silently

You can silently map Syncplicity folders to the Windows and Mac desktop clients. You can then prevent users from unsyncing (unmapping) those folders. You can also exclude folder paths from syncing.

For Windows, these are registry settings. For Mac, they are plist settings. You need to push the settings to the desktops using tools such as Group Policy Object (GPO) for Windows or PackageMaker for Mac.

Note: Both the Windows registry and Mac plist settings can be pushed before or after installing the Syncplicity client. If pushed after installing the client, the settings do not take effect until the client restarts or within 24 hours of running. However, the settings are removed after uninstalling the client and must be pushed again if reinstalling the client.

FoldersToMap setting

The FoldersToMap setting is a string that contains one or more folder paths. Each path is separated by a semi-colon (;). You can type a full path or use environment variables; for example, %userprofile%\<path> on Windows.

For Windows, the FoldersToMap registry setting is a string (REG_SZ). For Windows only, you can map the special folders by entering Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Favorites, Music, or any combination. The following example for Windows shows how to map all the special folders, along with the folders Corporate and Executive Documents.

FoldersToMap:REG_SZ:Desktop;Documents;Pictures;Favorites;Music;%userprofile%\Corporate; %userprofile%\Executive Documents

For Mac, the following example shows how to map folders Corporate and Executive Documents. Since the Executive Documents folder contains a space, it must be enclosed in quotes.

com.syncplicity.syncplicity folders_to_map $HOME/Corporate $HOME/"Executive Documents"

The setting does not take effect until the user installs, upgrades or restarts the Syncplicity desktop client.

If you include an invalid path, the desktop client ignores it and continues reading all the paths in the string.

Should you push a set of folders to map then later push out a new set of folders and you omit a folder in the second push of FoldersToMap registry setting, the omitted folder is not unmapped.

Notes:

• If a user has multiple desktops, each with a Syncplicity client and you push the same FoldersToMap to each desktop, the user could see multiple, but different Syncplicity folders with the same name.
• The special folders, Desktop, Documents, Pictures, Favorites (Windows only folder), and Music can also be mapped by the silent onboarding policy as described in Desktop onboarding polices. You may wish to map these special folders using FoldersToMap if you also plan to prevent users from unmapping them.
• AllowUserToUnmap setting

The AllowUserToUnmap setting allows or disallows users to stop syncing the folders set by FoldersToMap.

For Windows, the AllowUserToUnmap setting is a DWord with a value set to 1 or 0. A value of 1 allows users to stop syncing the folders set by FoldersToMap. A setting of 0 does not allow users to stop syncing those folders. Using the previous example of mapping Corporate and Executive Documents, the following example allows users to unsync those two folders:

AllowUserToUnmap:REG_DWord:1

For Mac, the setting is Yes or No, where Yes allows users to stop syncing the folders set by FoldersToMap. Using the previous example of mapping Corporate and Executive Documents, the following example allows users to unsync those two folders:

com.syncplicity.syncplicity allow_user_to_unmap -bool YES

If set to 1 or Yes and a user stops stop syncing a folder set by FoldersToMap, the folder is not remapped when the client is restarted.

If set to 0 (Windows) or No (Mac) and a user should attempt to stop syncing a folder mapped by FoldersToMap, a message is displayed stating that the action is not allowed by the account administrator.

If users are allowed to unmap, they can exclude files or folders under the FoldersToMap setting.

Note: You can push FoldersToMap without pushing AllowusertoUnmap. In this situation, the user is not allowed to stop syncing those folders set by FoldersToMap.

Windows example

There are a number of tools that can be used to push Windows registry settings. No one tool is recommended.

If you are using Group Policy Object (GPO), the following procedure shows how to push the Syncplicity registry settings to Windows clients.

1. Open Group Policy snap-in.
2. Selected the existing active policy or create new one.
3. Right click on selected policy >Edit. This opens the Group Policy Management Editor.
4. Go to User Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > Registry.
   
5. Right click on Registry then select New > Registry Item.
6. Specify the FoldersToMap setting then click OK.
7. Repeat step 5 then specify the AllowUsertoUnmap setting and click OK.
   
8. Additionally, you can exclude folders from syncing by creating a Registry item. This is FoldersToExclude as a string under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Syncplicity\1.0 with values as folder paths to exclude from syncing. Example value:
   Documents; Music; Pictures; Desktop; %USERPROFILE%\Documents\Microsoft User Data.
9. Close the Group Policy Management Editor.
10. Close the Group Policy snap-in.

The GPO is applied to the client computers automatically or you can force it by running the gpupdate /force command on the client system.

Mac example

There are a number of tools that can be used to push Mac plist settings. No one tool is recommended.

Note: You can add to the existing folders_to_map and folders_to_exclude plist arrays using the -array-add parameter or you can overwrite the existing folders_to_map and folders_to_exclude plist arrays using the -array parameter.

Here is an example how to update the plist file on Mac:

1. If the Syncplicity client is installed and running, quit the Syncplicity client.
2. Run the Terminal application and execute the following command to include specific folder paths:
   

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.syncplicity.plist folders_to_map -array-add path1 path2 path3

   The following example shows how to map folders Desktop, Pictures and Music:

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.syncplicity.plist folders_to_map -array-add Desktop Pictures Music

   The following example shows how to map the Documents folder:

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.syncplicity.plist folders_to_map -array-add /\$HOME/Documents/

3. Execute the following command to exclude specific folder paths:
   

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.syncplicity.plist folders_to_exclude -array-add path1 path2 path3

   The following example shows how to exclude the Documents/Microsoft User Data folder (note spaces and special characters need to be escaped using backslash):

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.syncplicity.plist folders_to_exclude -array-add /\$HOME/Documents/Microsoft\ User\ Data/

4. Execute the following command to allow or disallow unmapping by the end user:
   

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.syncplicity.plist allow_user_to_unmap -bool <YES|NO>

   The following example allows the user to unmap the folders set by folders_to_map:

   defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.syncplicity.plist allow_user_to_unmap -bool YES

5. Open the Activity Monitor utility and kill the cfprefsd process.
6. If installed, launch the Syncplicity client.

You can remove all the folders_to_map values from the plist using one of these commands:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.Syncplicity.plist folders_to_map -array

defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.Syncplicity.plist folders_to_map

You can remove all the folders_to_exclude values from the plist using one of these commands:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.Syncplicity.plist folders_to_exclude -array

defaults delete /Library/Preferences/com.syncplicity.Syncplicity.plist folders_to_exclude