Is there a specific reason that .cloudf placeholder/stub files are used instead of just an actual native OS folder? Folders themselves take up essentially no space.
It seems like it would save some clicking if you just used real folders. Wouldn’t it also enhance the native OS file search since the full file structure could exist in the odrive?
Hi @jared,
Good question. There are several reasons, actually. There is a blog post that covers progressive sync, if you are curious about learning more: http://blog.odrive.com/blog/2015/8/12/your-files-your-way-see-and-sync-what-you-need
The good news for users is that odrive offers you the ability to customize how you visualize your cloud. You can expose nested folder structures by simply right-click->syncing and choosing “include subfolders”.
I’m glad to see that when syncing a folder, you can specify “sync nothing” while indicating to “Include Subfolders”. I think that gets me what I was looking for.
I’m still not clear from the link you provided why this isn’t the default. Populating the entire folder structure with real folders and placeholders for files would still use essentially no storage space, but quicken user access. Is there a performance concern?
Many users have ginormous directory structures. Even though placeholders don’t use disk space, they consume CPU to keep in sync.
odrive is setup by default to sync against unlimited storage with unlimited structures.
I also prefer real folders with placeholder files instead of placeholder-folders.
However, a subtle benefit to placeholder-folders is that they prevent new files from automatically being downloaded inside them. Odrive doesn’t have any other way to control which folders should auto-download new files and which shouldn’t, so you could consider placeholder-folders to be a way for users to communicate that they don’t want new things downloaded there.
A related problem to having the kind of setup you and I want (real folders, placeholder files) is that new folders from other computers cannot be auto-downladed; they always appear as placeholder-folders ( Disable Progressive Sync? ). The global auto-download setting should have a checkbox to control this.