PC-Phone USB Sync

quixotely

About this app

Welcome to PC-Phone USB Sync — local, cloud-free backup and sync.

This app makes content folders the same on your PCs, phones, and removable drives. It's quicker than full copies because it updates only for changes. It's faster and more secure than clouds because it uses your drives instead of networks and servers. And it's a cross-device solution because it runs the same on your phones, tablets, and PCs.

All versions of this app are full, free, and ad-free. Get its Android version at the Play store and its Windows, macOS, and Linux versions at quixotely.com. For most roles, you'll also need a removable drive to store and transfer content. An SSD or thumb drive attached by USB is common, but microSD cards, cameras, and other devices work in this app too.


FEATURES

- Fast backup & sync with USB drives
- Runs on both phones and PCs
- Free and ad-free on all platforms
- Private and cloud-free by design
- Automatic rollback of sync changes
- In-app and online help resources
- Configurable form and function
- Open-source code for transparency
- Works on all Androids 8 and later


APP OVERVIEW

This app brings PC-level tools to your phone. The content it manages isn't just contacts, calendars, and a few stray photos. It's an entire folder of your choice, including all its subfolders, photos, documents, music, and other media you value.

By using this app with a removable drive, you can both back up this content on your phone or PC to save it, and sync (a.k.a. mirror) it between your devices to make it match: from PC to phone, from phone to PC, and any other way you find useful.

In tech terms, this app's syncs are on-demand and one-way at a time; this keeps you in control and avoids lossy conflicts. They can also be run in any direction and modify just the items you've changed; this makes them flexible and faster and gentler on your drives than full copies.

Perhaps best of all, this app uses your USB ports and removable drives for its backups and syncs to avoid both slow networks and the privacy perils of clouds. With this app, your stuff remains your stuff, not someone else's point of control.


USAGE BASICS

When using this app, you'll first collect your content files in a folder using a file explorer or other tool, and copy it to your devices with this app's COPY. Use subfolders to organize your content; everything in your folder will be synced in full.

After the initial copy, you'll make changes on one device at a time and push them to other devices with this app whenever you wish. Change propagations (a.k.a. syncs) use your USB ports and removable drive and vary by usage mode:

- To back up your content on phones or PCs, run this app's SYNC once: to push changes from your device to USB. This leaves a mirror image of your content folder on your USB drive.

- To sync your content between a phone and PC, run this app's SYNC twice: to push changes to USB on the source, and then to pull changes from USB on the destination. This leaves a mirror image of your content folder on your phone, PC, and USB drive.

- To sync your content between many devices, run the app's SYNC N times for N devices: once to sync from the device with changes to your USB drive, and then once to sync from your USB drive to each of your other devices. This leaves a mirror image of your content folder on all your devices as well as your USB drive.

In all modes, this app supports automatic rollbacks (i.e., undos) for all the changes its syncs make on each device. This helps ensure the safety of your content and lets you reset your content to a prior state in the past.

To run the app, you'll simply select FROM and TO content folders on your devices; run a SYNC or other action by tapping its button in the Main tab; and check the action's progress and results in the Logs tab.

You'll also find configuration, portability, and verification tools in the app. For full usage info, visit quixotely.com.

Ratings and reviews

It does just one thing and does it well! For some reason, there are precious few Android apps for local file syncing. Most of the others either require cloud involvement or they recopy unnecessarily. This app is fast, thorough, and intuitive. $ well spent. I just wish it could recognize the volumes mounted through ZUGate or Microsoft exFAT/NTFS for USB by Paragon Soft

It's usefulness is limited, because there is no way to make each transfer depend on which file has been more recently modified.

This is a great app it just doesn't work if you can't access your computer to download the app. Which is completely reasonable. I can't access my computer so the c app did not meet my needs.

What’s new

Version 1.3.2 was published for Android and all PCs. It updates the app to a newer Android API level and includes a handful of fixes for rare errors that spanned platforms. For the full story on this and other releases, please see https://quixotely.com/PC-Phone%20USB%20Sync/News.html