Selective Syncing now on Dropbox [Experimental]

Note: Selective Sync is avaliable with Dropbox 1.0 RC version and is quite stable. Read about it here.

Dropbox is set to bring Selective Syncing to its users in the upcoming stable build. Currently this feature is enabled in the latest experimental build only. Most of us are know about this excellent tool to sync files and folders across different computers. To know more about Dropbox, I suggest you to read:

What is Selective Sync?

Earliers builds of dropbox sync all your data uploaded to dropbox folder on one computer to the other computer. Selective sync lets you choose the folders you want to synchronize to your computer. In a way, it provides the users with greater control over what is sync’d from one computer to other. This feature can be useful when you have limited space available on your system where sync’ing is to be done! More about Selective Sync.

How to use Selective Sync?

Currently this feature is only available with the latest experimental build of dropbox. To use the feature, you need to download and install it on your computer where sync’ing is to be done. Download the experimental build for Windows/Mac/Linux.

After the installation, let dropbox index your files/folders and donot pause in between. Now, follow the steps:

Right click on dropbox notification icon, and select preferences.
Click on advanced tab and click Selective Sync button.

The list of folders in your dropbox folder will appear in a pop-up window. Uncheck the folder that you do not want to sync on your computer. When done, click ok! Unchecked folders will be removed from your hard-drive.

This way, you can simply sync selected folders with your computer. The experimental build has worked fine for me, on Windows xp as well as Linux 10.04. Download and give it a try! Or you can use stable builds of dropbox and wait for Selective Sync to come to the stable build.

Links: Dropbox Experimental build 0.8.64 | Dropbox Stable build | Create an account.

Happy Sync’ing!