Data Transfers

Data Transfers copies, moves or syncs folders between any two places Storage Studio can reach: folders on your Mac, your external drive, the cloud accounts you've connected, and devices paired with Bridge. A transfer can run once or on a schedule, and you can watch each one's progress in the same window.

Opening it

Click Data Transfers in the menu bar popover, or choose Data Transfers… from the More menu in the main window. The window has a list of transfers on the left and the details of the selected one on the right. New Transfer in the top-right corner starts a new one.

Starting a transfer

1. Click New Transfer.
2. Under Operation, choose what should happen. Each choice shows a one-line description under its name.
3. Fill in Source and Destination. Type a path, click the folder button to pick a folder on this Mac, or click the cloud button to browse a cloud account or a paired device (see the cloud folder browser).
4. Optionally choose a Schedule and open Advanced options.
5. Click Start Transfer. Tick Dry run (preview only) first if you'd like to see what would happen without changing anything.

The five operations

Copy, Move, Sync or Two-way sync explains the differences with examples, including exactly what Sync deletes.

%% caption: Choosing the right operation for a transfer
flowchart TD
  A{Is the source a web link?} -->|Yes| DL[Download]
  A -->|No| B{Should the source stay where it is?}
  B -->|No| M[Move]
  B -->|Yes| C{Just one copy, or keep them matching?}
  C -->|One copy| CP[Copy]
  C -->|Keep matching| D{Will both sides change?}
  D -->|Only the source| S[Sync one-way]
  D -->|Both| T[Bidirectional sync]

Watching and managing transfers

Each row in the list shows the operation, the source and destination, and a coloured status: Queued, Running, Paused, Completed, Failed, Canceled, Waiting for drive or Needs space. A running transfer also shows a progress bar and its speed. Up to two transfers run at the same time; the rest wait as Queued.

Select a transfer to see its details: source, destination, bandwidth, how many files transfer in parallel, start and end times, a progress line with files done, speed and time remaining, and a Log of recent activity. The buttons at the top change with the state:

• Pause, Resume and Cancel while it's running or waiting.
• Sync again or Run again once it has finished, failed or been cancelled — this sends only what changed. See Sync again and Run again.
• Remove takes a finished transfer off the list. It doesn't touch any files.

A scheduled transfer appears as one row with a run count, such as "5 runs". Click the arrow beside it to see each run with its date. If any of those runs failed, the row says how many. Clear completed in the toolbar removes every finished, failed and cancelled run from the list — including the original run that holds a schedule, so it also stops those schedules (see scheduling a transfer).

When the drive isn't connected

If a transfer uses your Storage Studio external drive and the drive isn't connected, the transfer waits as Waiting for drive instead of failing, and starts by itself when the drive is plugged back in. Check drive in its details checks again straight away, and Abandon pending in the toolbar cancels everything that is waiting. More in what happens to transfers when you restart.

What a transfer keeps

A transfer between two places on Macs and Mac drives carries file contents and names, plus as much of the files' other details as both ends can store. Cloud services store less than a Mac drive does, so details such as Finder tags and permissions usually don't survive a trip through a cloud account. If keeping those details matters, move folders between your Mac and your drive with Data Parking instead, and see what a move keeps.

See also: Scheduling a transfer · Trying a transfer first with Dry run · Bandwidth limit and files at once · Copying between two cloud accounts · A transfer failed