Symbolic Link Support

[nuenuewei]

Symbolic links allow placing a "virtual copy" of a file or folder in a custom location. This allows the same copy of a file or folder to appear in more than 1 place. This is a capability of the NTFS file system favored by Windows and a standard capability of Linux.

When kDrive encounters a symbolic link in a synced folder, the correct behavior is to follow the link and sync the target file or folder. Instead, as I test it right now, it only uploads the small link file itself; which is no different to uploading a shortcut to a file that isn't synced.

This is important because it would allow many files spread across dozens of locations to be virtually included in one centralized kDrive sync folder, without having to point kDrive to each one individually(which the current GUI is poorly suited for) or to physically move the files and folders(which is often not possible for technical reasons.)

If this were implemented, you would basically be deferring the work of creating an entire GUI- I don't need a window to show me a list of what's backed up when I can just open the folder in Explorer. I don't need a tool to select which files to back up because I can just use this tool as easy as using copy-paste. Likewise, it would improve terminal support for both Linux( via ln) and Windows(via mklink)

[herve-er]

Thanks a lot for your message.

Unfortunately, we’ve decided not to follow symbolic links in kDrive, for a few important reasons:

• Clarity: We want it to always be clear which files and folders are being synced. If we followed symlinks (especially ones pointing to other folders), a user could unknowingly end up syncing files that live outside the sync folder, without any visual cue or warning. That could be confusing or even risky.

• Windows limitations: On Windows, our Lite Sync feature doesn’t play well with symlinks, it’s a technical limitation of the OS itself. Following symlinks would either break Lite Sync or force us to behave differently depending on the platform, which we want to avoid.

• Stability and safety: Following links (especially recursively) opens the door to tricky issues, like infinite loops if a folder links to one of its parents. Supporting this cleanly would require a lot of additional logic and introduce complexity we’d rather avoid, to keep the app reliable.

We also hear your point about how the current GUI isn’t ideal when adding multiple sync folders. That’s something we’d genuinely like to improve. If you have a moment to share what specifically feels clunky or annoying about that process, it would really help us design something better in the future.

Thanks again for the thoughtful feedback!

[nuenuewei]

Guess that confirms my need to find a third party webDAV client. One that doesn't appoint itself to decide for me which features of my own filesystem I can be trusted with.