A Quick Guide to Acrosync for Windows (Version 1.5)

Acrosync for Windows is a native rsync client for Windows that doesn't depend on cygwin. It comes with an easy-to-use GUI, and supports Dropbox-style sync to automatically upload new or modified files. In addition, it provides a basic backup solution that can create hourly space-efficient incremental snapshots on remote servers, much like what Time Machine does on Mac.

The main window of Acrosync is a tabbed window that contains one tab for each profile as well as two additional tabs named 'Queue' and 'Log' on the right side for displaying sync tasks in progress and log messages.

On first run, Acrosync will present an empty profile as shown in this screenshot:

initial interface

On each profile tab, there are a number of text fields and check boxes for setting up various parameters of a sync task. The text fields on the top half of the window (outside of the Advanced options box) are required to perform a sync task:

Note that you can click on the small button with a networked folder icon next to the Remote Directory text field, which will bring up a browser and let you select the remote directory, rather than entering the path directly. For that button to work, you must have entered valid values for Server, Username, and Password.

Similarly, you can click on the button next to the Local Directory text field to select a local directory. After the local directory is selected, you can always open the local directory in Explorer by double clicking the Local Directory text field.

Once you've entered proper values into the above text fields, and select which sync mode to use (Download, Upload, or Auto Upload), you can then click the Start button to start the sync task. All inputs on the current profile tab will become disabled, except for the Start button whose label has now changed to Stop:

downloading

When using the Download and Upload modes, if the Run at scheduled times option is unchecked, the inputs will be enabled again after the sync task is completed. If you select the Auto Upload mode, or if the Run at scheduled times option is checked, however, Acrosync will stay in the running state, starting the sync task whenever a file changes (only under the Auto Upload mode) or the schedule time is reached (under both modes), until the Stop button is pressed. With the Auto Upload mode, Acrosync will be performing a selective backup with detected file changes, and a full backup at scheduled times.

You can add a new profile or delete an existing profile by clicking the Acrosync icon in the system tray.

Advanced Options

Acrosync also provides the following advanced options:

Scheduler Options

Clicking the Run at scheduled times checkbox will bring up a dialog for setting up scheduler options:

scheduler

Include/Exclude Patterns

To include or exclude certain files or directories, you must specify a list of patterns separated by spaces. A pattern may contain one or more '*' to indicate wild card matching.

A pattern may start with '/' which means the pattern will be used to match against the path relative to the local or remote directory. For example, an include pattern of '/private' means that only the subdirectory named 'private' under the the local or remote directory will be included in the sync.

If the pattern doesn't start with '/', then it can't contain '/' and it is used to match against the last component of the path. For example, an include pattern of 'private' means that any directory named 'private', no matter how many levels deep it is in the directory tree, will be included in the sync.

Acrosync doesn't distinguish files from directories when performing pattern matching As a result, if the include pattern is 'private', all files named 'private' and all directories named 'private' will be included.

To include or execlude paths that contain white spaces, replace space with '*'. For instance, to exclude the 'Program Files' directory, set the exclude pattern to 'Program*Files'.

Command Line Interface

Acrosync allows profiles with a name to be started via the command line option '-p':
AcrosyncClient32.exe -p <profile name>
Profile names can be assigned by right clicking on the profile tabs and then selecting the menu. By default profiles do not have a name and what is shown in the profile tab is merely the last component of the local directory.

Run as Service

Starting from version 1.5, Acrosync can be set up as a Windows service to run profiles at scheduled times in the background. To install as a service, the Acrosync installer must be run with administrator rights. A dialog will appear to provide a choice of installing for all users or for current user only:

install

If you choose to install for all users, an option for installing as a service will be provided near the end of the installation:

service

Alternatively, you can run the Acrosync executable directly to install the service:
AcrosyncClient32.exe --install
Once installed, the Acrosync service will run all profiles with the scheduler enabled and the Automatically start this profile on logon option checked. You can run the Acrosync executable with administrator rights to configure profiles to by run by the service.

When the service has been started on the background, running the Acrosync exectuable with adminstrator rights will pause the service, and resume the service on exit.

Note that when Acrosync is installed for all users and/or as a service, all profiles are saved under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key rather than HKEY_CURRENT_USER.