Qsync for Mac OS x

[franksch]

Qsync client is available for OS X. However, for some reason qsync does not work with special characters in filenames, such as ‘*’ or ‘?’ etc. This makes qsync very unreliable to use in a mixed network. I don’t understand this choice as qnap drives work with ext4 which does handle special characters just fine.
So: please make qsync respect Linux and OS X filename conventions so that becomes a useful tool for a mixed network.

[Mousetick]

FYI:
a) You're talking to the wind. No one here is in any capacity to implement the feature you're requesting. QNAP doesn't read this forum section. You need to contact QNAP directly.
b) These characters are illegal on Windows, and Qsync allows for syncing with Windows.

[franksch]

Hello Mousetick,
Thank you for your reply.

a: I noticed so I also made a 'call' to QNAP directly.
b: yes, I know, that's my point: IF you want to make a serious cross platform app you should take care of this, not just ignore it.
Google drive (or 'backup and sync') knows how to do this: they replace the windows-illegal characters by '_' but under the hood keep track of this. So when you modify a file under windows it still copies correctly to google drive: under windows the 'illegal characters' are replaced, but not on the mac and linux computers. Works flawlessly, very nifty.
So I think either QNAP advertizes that QSync is only windows compatible/not a cross-platform product (doesn't make sense of course for a NAS-app) or they adapt QSync in a way similar to Google Drive.

Regards,
Frank

[Mousetick]

I agree with your expectation for handling those characters but you're assuming that QNAP wants to make a serious cross-platform app - that's a big leap of faith

You don't have to restrict yourself to QNAP-made solutions. Take a look at Resilio Sync, for example. There is a version available for QNAP. It's purely peer-to-peer, there's no cloud storage server. It supports remote sync over the internet but you can use it to sync only within your LAN if you want to. It handles Windows-illegal characters like Google drive and preserves some of the Mac metadata (such as Finder tags and Spotlight comments).

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the product or the company, I'm just a satisfied user. So take my suggestion FWIW. You can give it a try and see if it works for you. The basic version is free for personal usage.

[franksch]

Hello Mousetick,
Thank you for the suggestion. I’ll look into Resilio Sync.
For our ongoing projects I instructed the participants not to use ‘?’ etc. Problem is that many internetlinks have ‘|’ in them when you save them on an Apple, this is giving most conflicts at the moment. And of course ‘instructing’ is not a very robust basis for a project-sharing network :-/ I also experimented with ‘Syncthing’ which looks good so far.
I’ll have to do a bit more homework.
Regards,
Frank

[Mousetick]

I'm aware of Syncthing but have no experience with it. I had considered it a while ago but then dismissed it because it doesn't preserve any Mac metadata. Otherwise it looks good on paper. Like Qsync and Resilio Sync it works peer-to-peer without a central storage server or user account registration with a 3rd-party.

Good luck with your search for a solution and with your projects