PureSync 7 review: Syncing, backup, and other useful utilities at a reasonable price

Price When Reviewed

$30

Best Prices Today: PureSync 7 Professional

PureSync is a capable file/folder sync program that includes several handy related features that set it apart from the crowd. It’s stable, affordable, and quick, but currently lacks support for the online storage services, and we ran into some glitches with job creation.

Further reading: See our roundup of the best Windows backup software to learn about competing products.

What are PureSync’s features?

Beyond the usual folder syncing that we’ve become accustomed to with our mobile devices (IMAP, iCloud, etc.), PureSync in its $30 (€26.95) Professional flavor offers pure backup, backup to several locations, merging of folders, finding and deleting duplicate files (including by contents), moving files, and creating shadow copies and Windows restore points.

It even lets you mount the latter as virtual drives to browse their contents. Note that you can optionally have PureSync create shadow copies to facilitate copying locked and open files. Nice.

PureSync also backs up to and from your network, including via FTP (even external FTP).

Another neat PureSync trick I appreciated was the ability to download websites. I used this to back up my own site, but it only finds posted material, not work in progress so you’ll still need to use your web host’s backup facilities for that.

Note that this feature is not intended for, and doesn’t work for downloading files from commercial sites such as YouTube, etc.

The main feature missing, as mentioned, is support for online storage services such as DropBox, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. Those services offer their own sync facilities, but many of the increasingly popular S3-compatible variety do not.

Is PureSync easy to use?

PureSync is about as easy to use as sync programs get. The interface is attractive if slightly dated; the language is no-nonsense; wizards step you through the job creation process nicely; and there’s plenty of feedback while jobs are running, plus a detailed log when they’re completed. There’s also right-click menu integration and you can optionally define which of these contextual operations are listed.

There was an occasional typo, hinting at the program’s native German origins, but nothing remotely inhibiting. If you understand the basics of syncing, you’ll have no problems with PureSync

How does PureSync perform?

During actual file transfers and other normal operations, PureSync performed admirably. I synced to and from two local drives, as well as to/from a NAS box on my local network using both Windows SMB and FTP. I also created restore points and shadow copies with nary a glitch. That said, restore points didn’t appear in the Windows System restore list until after I’d rebooted.

I also had some issues (not always replicable) with PureSync’s file/folder selector and its interaction with Windows Explorer. Using the program’s New Folder function doesn’t work in real time, instead waiting until the job is started. This confused it at least once, saying that “Other… doesn’t exist” and keeping the job from running.

PureSync also oddly brought to the forefront the Explorer window of a new folder I’d created (using Windows Explorer) when I clicked on the listing inside PureSync. I’ll give the program credit for recognizing the folder now existed, but the interface between Windows Explorer and PureSync needs some fine tuning.

To cap off the issues, I was unable to sync from my phone using either the Foto Sync job, which is for digital cameras (I assumed this should include phones, which are the digital cameras of today) or a default sync job.

The phone, DCIM, and photo folders showed up just fine in PureSync’s browser, however the program complained it couldn’t find the phone’s internal storage when I tried to initiate the job. Copying the phone files off worked just fine using nothing but Windows Explorer.

Should you buy PureSync?

As it stands, PureSync performed flawlessly in actual transfers once they were successfully initiated, and the duplicate file finder, website downloader, and restore point creator/mounter proved handy indeed. But the glitches, failed phone sync, and lack of support for online storage mean I can’t currently recommend paying for the 7.2 professional version at this point. Note that I also tested the 7.5 beta with much the same result.

In the meantime, by all means download the personal version, which lacks FTP and shadow copy/restore point functionality and some other features, but is free. There is indeed handiness to be found and I’m sure Jumping Bytes Software will fix the bugs in short order. As soon as the company informs me they have, I’ll be back at this review.