How to transfer your Syncplicity data to another machine when you have a slow or bandwidth limited internet?

ANSWER:

 You have received a new company laptop or PC and would like to set up Syncplicity on the new device but are concerned that syncing all your data locally from the cloud might take a lot of time and take up all your bandwidth when working remotely. This particular use case can apply to employees who have very slow or bandwidth-limited internet and cannot reconnect Syncplicity on their new device and wait for the synchronization of all the data they choose to sync locally.

In order to avoid downloading a large number of files on your new computer and also ensure that there will be no duplicate data and the new content on the new device will be synchronized in the correct place, there are two solutions to consider:

1. Use an external hard disk

Copy all files from the old laptop/PC to the new device by using an external hard disk. When you install the desktop client on the new device, it will ask you which folders from the cloud you want to be added to the new device. You can then select to download the folders you want, making sure you select the exact location of the files you have just copied. You will get a message telling you that the folder already exists, and asking you if you would like to merge the existing folders with the newly added ones. You should select to merge the folders and the files will be synchronized without being downloaded. The way it works is that when the Syncplicity client on the new machine starts it will check the hash of the files, which are already on the disk, and if it matches the cloud hash it will not download the files again.

2. Use SyncDrive

     2.1. To transfer the data from your previous laptop/PC to the new device, you need to install the Syncplicity desktop client on the new device as a fresh installation. You can download the client at: https://my.syncplicity.com/Client/Windows/ or https://my.syncplicity.com/Client/Mac/ .

At the end of the installation process, the desktop client will go through all of your cloud folders and ask which ones to add to the device and which ones to stay in the cloud only. The folders are not downloaded locally, and SyncDrive feature shows a view of what folders you have in the cloud and can access on-demand anytime anywhere. Furthermore, SyncDrive is very convenient for working over large amounts of data as it allows users to sync/download to their desktop only the content that they need.

Please have in mind that if you add a SyncDrive folder to the new machine, it will sync in S: drive by default and not in the original place you had it on your previous laptop/PC.

   2.2. If you already have the Syncplicity desktop client installed on the new device and data is syncing locally, however, you would like to avoid downloading every new file that has been uploaded in the folders (to spare network bandwidth and disk space in general) – then you can turn your locally synced folders to go to the S: drive by using the "Add Folders from Syncplicity Cloud" feature to map all folders under S: drive. It will not download the data, but it will be visible in S: as it is what we call "metadata view" on what you have in your Syncplicity account.