Sep 27, 2011

FTP sync across machines using dropbox

I use Filezilla for FTP uploads etc.  Keeping accounts in sync across machines has been a hassle until now.

I suspected there would be a way using Dropbox - and it turns out there are three:

1) Use a portable version of Filezilla installed in say \Dropbox\software\
 available from Prortable Apps:
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/filezilla_portable

2) Reconfigure Filezilla to look for it's config files in your dropbox rather than the programs installation folder.  Details here: 
http://www.justinmontgomery.com/sync-and-secure-filezilla-with-dropbox

3)For Win 7 and newer, Mac OS  or Linux use Hardlinks or Symbolic links.
it involves moving the confiv file and making a symbolic link using the mklink command or equivalent:
mklink “C:\Users\peter\AppData\Roaming\FileZilla\sitemanager.xml” “C:\Users\peter\My Dropbox\Settings\sitemanager.xml”

More details here:
http://www.code-zen.net/2009/syncing-filezilla-sites-across-computers-with-dropbox


I'm still on XP on most machines so I took approach 2.