3. MirrorFolder

Mirror Folder

Mirror Folder is a local synchronization tool with support for network attached storage. By default, the installation process sets up Mirror Folder to run every time a system starts, which is not necessarily either good or bad. You’ll also have to restart your system after installation.

Once you get Mirror Folder loaded, it really is quite a simple program, with a very straightforward user interface. It’s not quite the left (source) / right (target) approach that we saw in our last review with Allway Sync and GoodSync; rather it’s a top and bottom approach, where the top is the source and the bottom is the target.

Mirror Folder provides a solid set of synchronization options, including real time synchronization that continuously syncs files, a periodic mode that syncs at preset intervals, as well as synchronization on startup or shutdown.

A key feature that we’ve noticed among the best synchronization tools is the ability to have some degree of control over what actually gets deleted when syncing. After all, you don’t want to erase data you might need one day. With Mirror Folder, you get the option to delete files and folders that aren’t matched on either side (source or target). There’s also an option to save overwritten and deleted files in the Recycle Bin, where they will remain until you empty it. The only catch-and it is a big one-is if you’re running the synchronization in real time mode, you cannot save overwritten files to the Recycle Bin. That might well be reason enough to change from real time to a periodic sync of a minute.