Schedule a Batch Job

  1. Create a new batch job via FreeFileSync's main dialog: Menu → File → Save as batch job...
     
    Setup a FreeFileSync batch job

  2. By default FreeFileSync will show a progress dialog during synchronization and wait while the results dialog is shown. If the progress dialog is not needed enable checkbox Run minimized. This will also skip the results dialog at the end.

    Alternatively if you want to see the progress, but not wait at the results dialog, it's sufficient to only select the On completion action Close progress dialog.

    Note
    Even if the progress dialog is not shown at the beginning, you can make it visible later during synchronization by double-clicking the FreeFileSync icon in the notification area.

  3. If you don't want error or warning messages to interrupt synchronization, set Handle errors to either Ignore or Stop.
     
  4. If log files are required, enable Save log and enter a folder path. Additionally FreeFileSync always stores the result of the last synchronization in file LastSyncs.log (up to a user-defined size, see Expert Settings).
     
  5. Set up the FreeFileSync batch job in your operating system's scheduler:


A. Windows Task Scheduler:

Note
  • In Windows 7 Program/script always needs to point to an executable file like FreeFileSync.exe even when the ffs_batch file association is registered. If a ffs_batch file were entered instead, the task would return with error code 2147942593 (0x800700C1), "%1 is not a valid Win32 application".
    For Windows 8 and later this limitation does not apply and you may enter the ffs_batch file path directly into Program/script and leave out Add arguments.
  • If you schedule FreeFileSync to run under a different user account, note that settings (e.g. GlobalSettings.xml) will also be read from a different path, C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\FreeFileSync, or in the case of the SYSTEM account from C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\FreeFileSync.


B. OS X Automator and Calendar:



C. Windows XP Scheduled Tasks:



D. Ubuntu Linux Gnome Scheduled Tasks: