I am looking for some software to keep files on multiple PC's and flash drives sync'd up. I have been using GoodSync but am at the end of my free trial period.

Because I am using it on so many machines I'd like to not use an app that I have to buy if I can avoid it.

Any suggestions on legally free software that would allow me to sync files by creating jobs, specifiying folders and files and so on?

rsync is your friend.

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.4; Series60/5.0 NokiaN97-3/10.2.012; Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1; en-us) AppleWebKit/525 (KHTML, like Gecko) WicKed/7.1.12344)

is this good for all MS files including outlook...?

Depending on how much space you need, check out Sugarsync. Their 2GB plan is free.

www.sugarsync.com

I use Live Mesh (mesh.com). Its a Microsoft product, though in my experience it works quite well, even on a Mac. I've tried SugarSync and DropBox, though Mesh is my favorite for keeping my documents and whatever else I need all in sync.

The problem with syncing an Outlook file is that everything you have is all stored in one big .pst file. If you get a lot of email this can easily reach 1GB or more. I would recommend looking into an IMAP or Exchange based email system that would let you sync it server-side across multiple devices. If that is not possible there are certain programs that let you sync Outlook files though they usually requires more specific software that gets added as a plug in to Outlook so that it can track individual changes in the .pst file so that it doesn't have to sync the whole thing all the time. I use to use something call Osa-Sync that did this across my home network though I think you can configure it across the internet as well.

I've used foldershare since it was available years ago. It's since been taken over by Microsoft and is now part of the Live set of products, but still works, and there's still a free version. There are other choices out there too, but I've never needed to go to them. I am currently keeping about 2,600 files synched between several machines without any problems.

As to Outlook files, there's no easy way to do that unless Outlook is only open on one machine at a time, and even that is messy. I gave up trying and eventually just moved my mail to a true hosted exchange server, so that I can access it from any machine running outlook or via the web and the server handles it all for me, all the other outlooks update. If for example I clean up my mails on the plane tomorrow, when I go online it will update all the other machines, and get the new mails, etc. It is really so much easier then any other solution, and you will probably get Outlook Web Access for the times you don't have your outlook available.

Looks similar to Dropbox (getdropbox.com), which also has a 2GB free sync service. There are probably a host of similar products, all with slightly different user interfaces. I'm a dropbox user, myself, and like the automatic revision system--they keep multiple versions of a file's history, in case you accidentally change or delete a file (although sugarsync may have the same features, too). Mostly, dropbox "just works," and has simplified my own synchronization problems immensely.

+1

I've been using Foldershare for a couple of years, too. It's now Live Sync. I have a little over 20,000 files syncing between 4 PC's with Foldershare, it works great.

I use "SyncToy 2.0" (via Microsoft...free) and the free version of "BestSync 2009"...I'm sure you can google and get download info!

Have had no problems whatsoever!

If you are looking for something to sync drives locally (i.e. not via online) I use Allway Sync'n'go. Works good for me to back up my documents to an external.

+1 on live mesh product from MSFT. Been using about three years now, now across mac, pc, linux, and mobile devices. It has a lot of free storage, and some features that the other free services don't, like group share and "team share" features.

+2 on Foldershare, which is now Windows Live Sync. The difference between it and the similarly named Windows Live Mesh is that Mesh stores your files in the cloud - Sync does not. But I have my office desktop online all the time, so not really an issue for me.

As for Outlook, I keep a lot of my mail on my Exchange (business) or IMAP (personal) server, and every two months or so download my mail from the server to a local PST file and then move the massive PST files around by USB key to sync them.

DropBox

2GB free. Clients for Win, Mac and Lin. Works fine for me.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I downloaded and tried most of the products suggested above and, in the end, decided there must be something to this paying thing. I couldn't find anything that is as easy to use as GoodSync so I bought several licenses for that product. I don't want to store my stuff online; I just don't trust the sensitive data to the cloud just yet. GoodSync makes syncing up to multiple flash drives from multiple PC's a breeze. The only thing I wish it could do is to 'analyze' multiple jobs at once instead of forcing me to analyze each one individually before performing the sync. It takes all of about five minutes, but that still seems annoying.

I might experiment with some of the others for other purposes but this one does it all for me, and I landed on it after trying many others (most of which weren't suggested) first.