All directory names may contain macros that are expanded during synchronization. Begin and end of each macro is marked by a % character. Besides special macros handling time and date, the operating system's environment variables can also be used.
Internal macros:
%date%
e. g. 2012-12-22 format
[YYYY-MM-DD]
%time%
e. g. 123044 format
[hhmmss]
%timestamp%
e. g. 2012-12-22
123044 format [YYYY-MM-DD hhmmss]
%year%
e. g. 2012
%month%
e. g. 12
%day%
e. g. 22
%hour%
e. g. 12
%min%
e. g. 30
%sec%
e. g. 44
%weekday%
e. g. Monday day
of the week
%week%
e. g. 28 calendar
week
Environment variables: (Windows)
%AllUsersProfile% e.
g. C:\ProgramData
%AppData% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming
%ComputerName% e.
g. Zenju-PC
%LocalAppData% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local
%ProgramData% e.
g. C:\ProgramData
%ProgramFiles% e.
g. C:\Program
Files
%ProgramFiles(x86)% e. g. C:\Program
Files (x86)
%Public% e.
g. C:\Users\Public
%Temp% e.
g. C:\Windows\Temp
%UserName% e.
g. Zenju
%UserProfile% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>
%WinDir% e.
g. C:\Windows
Special folder locations (Windows)
%csidl_Desktop% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\Desktop
%csidl_Downloads% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\Downloads
%csidl_Favorites% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\Favorites
%csidl_MyDocuments% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\Documents
%csidl_MyMusic% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\Music
%csidl_MyPictures% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\Pictures
%csidl_MyVideos% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\Videos
%csidl_Nethood% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Network
Shortcuts
%csidl_Programs% e. g.
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start
Menu\Programs
%csidl_Quicklaunch% e. g.
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet
Explorer\Quick Launch
%csidl_Resources% e.
g. C:\Windows\Resources
%csidl_StartMenu% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start
Menu
%csidl_Startup% e. g.
C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start
Menu\Programs\StartUp
%csidl_Templates% e.
g. C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Templates
Note: Most
macros listed here also have a variant for public folders.
E.g. csidl_MyMusic →
csidl_PublicMusic
Hint:
You can add a great amount of flexibility to a ffs_batch configuration file by creating new temporary environment variables in a bat or cmd file that are evaluated by FreeFileSync at runtime.
Example: The FreeFileSync batch file C:\SyncJob.ffs_batch contains macro %MyVar% instead of an absolute target folder and is invoked by a cmd file:
set
MyVar=C:\Target
"C:\Program files\FreeFileSync\FreeFileSync.exe" C:\SyncJob.ffs_batch
::%MyVar% is resolved as C:\Target during synchronization
Note
Temporary environment variables created with the set command are only valid if the synchronization is started by calling the
FreeFileSync executable directly. Using start /wait creates a new program context without these temporal variables.