I’m basically looking for something like Seafile, that behaves similarly to Dropbox and Google Drive but doesn’t sync EVERYTHING to each client. This is incredibly useful as my laptop (macbook pro) only has 256GBs of storage, but often I’ll use Seafile to grab files from my Windows 10 PC or phone. I’ve messed with Syncthing and it works wonderfully, but it wants to sync the whole directory to every endpoint.

The downfall to Seafile is that it chunks your data which allows for version control and the speed at which it works. Which can then be problematic to back that data up. I have a somewhat inelegant workaround which is pointing backup software at the mounted SeaDrive folder and it seems to work.

My question is: Is there something in between that I’m not considering? Something fast like Seafile, but with “selective sync” but preferably syncs the files whole like syncthing?

NOTE: I tried Nextcloud and for my hardware, it runs terribly. So that is out for me. And honestly its too much app for what I need.

  • Genuine question: is there a reason why Syncthing’s ignore function doesn’t work for you? Because that’s what I would suggest, but it seems you’re already aware of it.

    ETA: Maybe Resilio Sync might work for you? It touts selective sync. Since it’s based on the BitTorrent protocol, it might also chunk data, but it’s worth checking out.

    • I wasn’t aware that was an option, honestly. I shall investigate.

      Funny that you mention Resilio, I literally came back just now to post it as a possible option. Unfortunately the selective sync is behind a paywall. $59.99 one time fee, which isn’t terrible tbh. I’ll have to see if they have a Pro trial after I test again with Syncthing. Thanks!

      EDIT: Resilio does have a 14 day Pro trial. Messing with it now but I’m going to look at syncthing again before I commit.