I have a Mac mini which I use at my desk and I own a MacBook Air m1 and I would like to know if there is a way to keep these two in sync as far as applications / settings etc so they are identical? I was thinking of just working off the MacBook Air but it seems there is a performance benefit for using the MINI for desk work and gaming and than just using the airlock for roaming.
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Any way to "SYNCH" two different machines
- Thread starter Dorfdad
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I suppose you could get part way there by using Dropbox to synch your Applications folder. I wouldn’t try it though.
That might work for a few minutes, I suppose depending on the app. I agree. I wouldn't try it. It would probably present more problems.
I believe you should be able to use the rsync command to keep these synchronized, and have the rsync in a shell script that gets run by cron. You could use crontab to have the script run every 5 minutes, or whatever interval you want. There's a fair amount of reading to make sure you get the rsync command line correct, but this would be the optimal way to keep your /Applications and app preferences folders synced.
Code:
rsync is a file transfer program capable of efficient remote update
via a fast differencing algorithm.
Usage: rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOSTEST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... [USER@]HOSTEST
or rsync [OPTION]... SRC [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[DORT]/DEST
or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
or rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
or rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[PORT]/SRC [DEST]
The ':' usages connect via remote shell, while '::' & 'rsync://' usages connect
to an rsync daemon, and require SRC or DEST to start with a module name.
I keep my system Documents and iCloud synced. I use 1Password for passwords.
But I would advise against automatic sync of apps and settings. I keep my systems identical, but it is great to have another system that I redundant. Just tonight I had a PeakHour 4 version update that started crashing. A quick restore from the other system and I was back online and selected "Skip this update."
Faster than digging out the CCC clones or TimeMachine.
But I would advise against automatic sync of apps and settings. I keep my systems identical, but it is great to have another system that I redundant. Just tonight I had a PeakHour 4 version update that started crashing. A quick restore from the other system and I was back online and selected "Skip this update."
Faster than digging out the CCC clones or TimeMachine.
No great way to keep apps/settings synced that I know of, so you'll likely need to do that manually.
Files can be synced any number of ways. Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.will work though those can eat up your Internet service data allowance if your ISP has data caps.
NAS devices from Synology have a private cloud sync software called Cloud Station Drive that works pretty well; it'll sync via local network when you're home and syncs across the Internet when you're somewhere else. I imagine QNAP and others have something similar.
Files can be synced any number of ways. Dropbox, OneDrive, etc.will work though those can eat up your Internet service data allowance if your ISP has data caps.
NAS devices from Synology have a private cloud sync software called Cloud Station Drive that works pretty well; it'll sync via local network when you're home and syncs across the Internet when you're somewhere else. I imagine QNAP and others have something similar.
No.
And there really isn't any reason to.
iCloud can and will keep all documents and data synced.
And how often are you installing Applications? That seems like a trivial thing to be concerned with.
And there really isn't any reason to.
iCloud can and will keep all documents and data synced.
And how often are you installing Applications? That seems like a trivial thing to be concerned with.