Project Sync is a private, native macOS app for scheduled one-way file syncs between:
- folders on your Mac;
- mounted NAS or network drives (for example,
/Volumes/My NAS); - remote machines reachable with SSH.
It is inspired by the lightweight native feel of Syncthing for macOS, but it has its own job dashboard and uses the tools already included with macOS. Files and job metadata stay local.
- Native SwiftUI dashboard and menu-bar controls
- Custom Project Sync app icon
- Sparkle-powered automatic update checks
- Mac → NAS, NAS → Mac, Mac → Mac, and local ↔ SSH jobs
- Backup mode (copy/update without deleting old destination files)
- Mirror mode (destination exactly follows source, including deletions)
- Real-time file watching for Mac folders and mounted NAS sources, plus manual, hourly, daily, and weekly schedules
- Preview/dry runs before changing files
- Configurable concurrent run limits, exponential retry backoff, and run-on-volume-mount jobs
- Pause/resume controls for individual real-time watchers
- Job cancellation, live transfer output, searchable persisted history, transfer summaries, and plain-text logs
- Configurable history retention with per-entry, per-job, and full cleanup controls
- Optional checksum verification after syncs or on demand
- Optional versioned copies of replaced/deleted files with retention and item-level restore
- Exclusion presets, custom exclusion patterns, job duplication, and per-job notes
- Configurable macOS notifications, including a per-job switch for busy syncs, stale-backup reminders, and privacy-redacted diagnostic export
- macOS extended-attribute preservation
- Optional launch at login for unattended schedules
Project Sync deliberately does not implement remote-to-remote transfers or automatic NAS mounting. Mount SMB/AFP/NFS shares in Finder first. SSH jobs use your existing key-based SSH setup and do not display password prompts.
Real-time jobs use macOS FSEvents, run once when watching starts to catch up, and then start a sync after file activity has been quiet for two seconds. If more changes arrive during a sync, one follow-up run is queued. Like timed schedules, real-time watching operates while Project Sync is running; enable launch at login for unattended use. Remote SSH sources cannot be watched without software running on the remote machine, but local and mounted-NAS sources can sync to remote destinations in real time.
The Developer projects exclusion preset applies common generated-dependency, cache, and build-output patterns at every folder depth. It intentionally keeps source-control history, lockfiles, and local environment files; those have separate optional presets so a complete private backup remains the default.
Requirements: macOS 14 or newer and Xcode 15 or newer.
swift run ProjectSyncYou can also open Package.swift in Xcode and run the ProjectSync scheme.
chmod +x Scripts/build-app.sh
Scripts/build-app.sh
open "build/Project Sync.app"The script creates an ad-hoc signed app at build/Project Sync.app. Move it to /Applications before enabling Launch at login. For distribution to other Macs, replace ad-hoc signing with your Apple Developer ID and notarize the app.
Sparkle 2.9.4 is embedded in the app bundle. The Settings window, app menu, and menu-bar menu all provide Check for Updates… controls.
- Start with Backup mode.
- Use Preview Changes and read the log.
- Switch to Mirror only when destination deletions are desired.
- Optional versioned copies can help recover replaced or deleted destination items, but they are not full snapshots. Keep a separate backup of important data.
Jobs and history are stored under ~/Library/Application Support/Project Sync. Each run writes a log in the Logs subfolder.
Project Sync invokes /usr/bin/rsync directly with an argument array—never through a local shell. Remote jobs add SSH transport with batch mode and a connection timeout. Source paths use trailing-slash semantics, so the contents of the chosen source folder are copied into the chosen destination folder.
swift test