I have used cloud as long term storage over the years and backed up a significant volume of files, more than I could store locally. I like the idea of using the unsync place holders but dont want to have to redownload them all and then unsync them. I’d like to “download” these archives but as opposed to downloading the files I would simply down load the relative structures and placeholders.
That’s actually the way odrive works by default. After linking your sources, you can see how “Progressive Sync” works… when you click into a top-level source folder, you will see only the contents as placeholder files and placeholder subfolders there. Keep drilling down into the subfolder placeholders by doubleclicking on them, and they become real folders full of more placeholder files and placeholder folders.
So nothing is actually downloaded unless you explicitly decide to access a file.
(Note: this can be tuned by changing the “autodownload limit” file size setting via the tray icon menu, but by default we always use placeholders so that we never download anything since we don’t want to take up any more disk space or chew up any more bandwidth than we need to).
If you wanted to create the placeholder structure without having to click into each subfolder to expand it, you can simply select the top-level parent folder and right-click --> Sync. In the dialog that pops up, make sure the slider bar indicates to Never download and that the “include subfolders” checkbox is checked. This will recursively drill down and create the placeholder structure without downloading any files. But if your files truly are there for infrequently accessed archive purposes, you may as well leave them as placeholder folders until the time you need to access them anyway.
The Unsync feature is really only useful after you’ve accessed (downloaded) a file and are done with it and want to convert it back into a placeholder.
-Jeff