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Add to SafariWhen comparing Q-Dir (the Quad Explorer) vs FreeFileSync, the Slant community recommends Q-Dir (the Quad Explorer) for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for Windows?” Q-Dir (the Quad Explorer) is ranked 44th while FreeFileSync is ranked 52nd. The most important reason people chose Q-Dir (the Quad Explorer) is:
Every window can be separately customized. You can choose between different views from 1 to 4 windows, and every window can have multiple tabs!
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Highly manageable multiple windows
Every window can be separately customized. You can choose between different views from 1 to 4 windows, and every window can have multiple tabs!
Pro You can use tabs in every window
Pro Does not use a lot of RAM
Q-dir with 4 windows and with 4 tabs in every window uses only 39mb of RAM on Win10x64.
Pro Free
Pro Portable
Pro You can view 4 windows simultaneously
Pro Fast and stable
Pro Very customizable
Pro Q-Dir allows you to save folder combinations as a favourite to open any time
Up to 64 folder combinations can be saved in a favorite, since each of the four windows is equipped with tabs (ie 4 x 16 tabs 4 x Tree View plus 4 x Address Bar).
Pro It supports multiple protocols
It will work with MTP, FTP, SFTP, FTPS, and more.
Pro It can copy locked files
It supports Volume Shadow Copy Service, meaning that it can copy files even if they are in use or otherwise locked.
Pro Cross-platform
It runs on Windows, Linux and MacOS.
Pro Portable version available
Pro It is quite performant
Pro Google Drive support
FreeFileSync provides direct access to Google Drive, no additional software is needed.
Pro Completely free
Source code releases are provided under GPLv2.
Pro It supports realtime sync
It can be configured to constantly monitor two folders for changes and sync them instantly when a change is detected.
Pro It lets you program batch scripts
You can program your own jobs for execution as a script.
Pro It supports case sensitive synchronization
For Unix-like systems.
Pro It supports long file paths
It can copy files and folders with more than 260 characters in their paths.
Pro It supports versioning
Versioning is keeping multiple instances of the modifications of your files.
Pro It can sync both local disks and network shares
Cons
Con Sometimes may have bugs
Con No search
Con Needs modern UI design
Con Does not preserve folder timestamps when copying
Con Memory hog
It runs a little slow on computers who don't have much RAM available.
Con Limited built in history
The program only remembers the latest set of folders you synced, so you have to save your syncs or create batch files.
Con A little intimidating for novices
If you never ran a file syncing software, this can be a little tricky to configure as your first one.
Con No backup encryption
Con It doesn't run on older Linux systems
It's dependencies don't allow it to run on older systems.
