Smart Sync Sync CLI or AppleScript

[ChrisGrahamMast]

 When I move an "Online only" file into a "Local" folder, the file stays "Online Only", and the folder changes to a "mixed" state. Is there a way with Smart Sync to force anything I move from an "online only" folder to a "Local" folder to changes the state of the file to local?

We're looking for an automated way, via the command line, an applescript, whatever- that forces files to download to a "local" state when a script runs that moves online only files into a local "to do" folder.

[AnthonyMargotta]

+1 I would also like this!

[rfiorentino]

Yes, I'd appreciate this too. It's a little ridiculous that something simple like this has been asked for rather persistently for the last year or so, and still, nothing definitive has happened. I'm a software developer as well, so if I can offer any help in this, I'd be happy to...but let's start putting actions to words. 🙂

[Greg-DB]

Thanks for the additional feedback!

[soid]

+1, please. It would be useful.

[campmdabt]

+1

We're trying to use this as well. We have some IT setup scripts that need to be accessible via dropbox and are accessed via the system profile in an automated fashion. Since the user owns the dropbox files, the system account doesn't force them to smart sync. Having a way to force a local sync of just one folder would be very useful to us.

[varenc]

@campmdabt  I wanted to do the same thing and was sadly out of luck.

Of course you can cat a file to ensure Dropbox syncs it but that's a bit slow for a large directory.  My solution was to read the first 10 bytes of every file in a folder recursively and in parallel.  This triggers Dropbox to sync the files somewhat efficiently and without forcing you to read the contents of all the files.  Here's the shell-fu to do it:
fd -0 -t file /path/to/sync | gparallel -j 30 -0 'dd if="{}" bs=10 count=1 > /dev/null '

That runs `dd` in 30 parallel threads. Requires the `fd` find alternative and GNU Parallel.  But easy to make work with the standard `find` and `parallel` tools as well. Cheers.

[Ike N.1]

+1

[anthug]

+1

[cbbb1]

++1

[Dylman3000]

+1 This would be so helpful!