Best approach for mirroring select nested files and folders?

[kukur9]

Hi,

I have an app and associated data that I want to selectively back up each day with VV Pro. Within the app's folder there are subfolders and files. I want to back up select files and subfolders, plus select files within certain subfolders.

It's not clear to me how to attach a file filter to a subfolder - it seems like the file filter gets applied to the entire profile, which suggests that I have to use a separate profile for each subfolder? Is this right? It would be so much simpler to have file filters attach to a specific subfolder rather than at the global folder level.

I wish I could just drag and drop the individual files and folders/subfolders (about 24 of them) in VV and have a script created automatically...

Anyway, any help would be appreciated.

Lorenzo

[TGRMN Software]

Hello

you can use a file filter such as:

Include c:\folder\subfolder\*.dat

thanks
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TGRMN Software Support
http://www.tgrmn.com
http://www.compareandmerge.com

[Guest]

[Guest]

Hi,
I made a test folder to test my profile filters and the following file filter (include) does not appear to work. The subfolder filter is working, but the specific files are not recognized when I preview the mirror copy:

Folders
- Source: "D:\zTESTFolder\"
- Target: "F:\zTestFolder\"
- Include Subfolders: Yes
- Include files: "D:\zTESTFolder\IN Global for copy.xls"
- Include files: "D:\zTESTFolder\F1\this should copy.xls"
- Include subfolders: "D:\zTESTFolder\F5 and should copy all\"
Comparison
- Comparison Type: Size and Timestamp
- Ignore 2 seconds difference
- Ignore 1 hour difference
Execution
- Method: Backup (Mirror Source to Target)
- No archive for deleted/replaced source files
- No archive for deleted/replaced target files

Would you please tell me what I'm doing wrong?

[kukur9]

Just to clarify from further testing: either the subfolder filter or the file filter alone works, but trying to use them together results in one or both filters failing to copy the desired files/folders. What am I doing wrong?

[kukur9]

Well, I finally got VV Pro to do what I wanted... This reminds me of the "good 'ol" DOS command line days and my trusty RPN HP 12C...

Note again that in this situation I am copying specific files in the root folder as well as within subfolders, and I am copying some but not all subfolders in their entirety. (The app I'm backing up has some subfolders of data that are over 3 GB, and I just want to back up my settings and preferences along with some specific hard-to-restore data.)

What would be helpful is if the instructions say "when you use filters for both files and folders, you need to specify the appropriate files and folders in both file filters and subfolder filters.

Or put another way: If you want to filter for individual files and subfolders simultaneously, select the files for filtering with the file filter mask, then include/exclude the appropriate folder in the subfolders filter mask. An individual file's home folder is not implied by the path entered in the file filter. It needs to be explicitly included/excluded in the subfolder filter maks too. If you want to copy an entire subfolder while filtering others, you have to specify all the files in that subfolder using a file filter in addition to specifying the actual subfolder with a subfolder filter.

I suppose there is a less convoluted way of explaining this, but unfortunately it all seems convoluted to me because I came it from a "just pick what you want to copy" perspective rather than a power-user logic perspective. I just wish I had found this info in the help file...

Here is the profile setting that works as desired now (note changes from profile above). As I explained, you can see that to copy an entire subfolder (F5, in this case) you have to specify its files with a file filter and you have to have the subfolder filtered.


Folders
- Source: "D:\zTESTFolder\"
- Target: "F:\zTestFolder\"
- Include Subfolders: Yes
- Include files: "IN Global for copy.xls"
- Include files: "\F1\this should copy.xls"
- Include files: "\F5 and should all\*"
- Exclude hidden files
- Exclude system files
- Include subfolders: "D:\zTESTFolder\"
- Include subfolders: "D:\zTESTFolder\F1\"
- Include subfolders: "D:\zTESTFolder\F5 and should all\"
- Exclude empty subfolders
- Exclude hidden subfolders
- Exclude system subfolders
Comparison
- Comparison Type: Size and Timestamp
- Ignore 2 seconds difference
- Ignore 1 hour difference
Execution
- Method: Backup (Mirror Source to Target)
- No archive for deleted/replaced source files
- No archive for deleted/replaced target files


I hope this helps someone else trying to do what I'm doing...
Lorenzo

[TGRMN Software]

Thanks for posting this and glad that you made it work!
_________________
--
TGRMN Software Support
http://www.tgrmn.com
http://www.compareandmerge.com