Pause sync and choose when it runs
Sync runs by itself in the background. On each device you can pause it without taking it apart, choose how often it runs, and still sync by hand whenever you like. This page also explains what happens when two devices changed the same thing.
Pausing and the schedule work on phones and computers, with every kind of sync storage. Each device has its own: pausing your laptop does not pause your phone.
Where to find it
Section titled “Where to find it”Open the Account page and find Sync:
- On a computer: Settings > Account and security.
- On a phone: More > Account.
Once sync is set up, the Sync row has Pause and Sync now, and the Sync mode row below it says when sync runs by itself, with Change.
Pause sync
Section titled “Pause sync”- Choose Pause.
- Choose For 1 hour, For 1 day or Until I resume it.
While sync is paused:
- nothing syncs by itself, and changes you make on this device wait,
- Sync now still syncs, and the pause stays,
- sync stays set up: nothing is deleted and nothing needs setting up again,
- the Sync row shows Paused and says until when.
On a computer, the status bar says Sync paused; its tooltip says until when. Click it to open the Account page.
To end a pause, choose Resume. A pause for an hour or a day ends by itself. Either way, sync runs again as Sync mode says: with Instant or an interval, the changes that waited go at once.
Sync now
Section titled “Sync now”Sync now runs one full sync on this device: it fetches what your other devices sent, merges it with what is here, and sends this device’s changes. It works while sync is paused, and with Manual, which never syncs by itself.
Choose when sync runs by itself
Section titled “Choose when sync runs by itself”Choose Change on the Sync mode row, and pick:
| Choice | Sync runs |
|---|---|
| Instant | About a second after every change you make on this device, and every 5 minutes to bring in your other devices’ changes (“Sends each change at once, and brings in other devices’ changes every 5 minutes”) |
| Every 5 minutes, Every 10 minutes, Every 15 minutes or Every 30 minutes | On that interval, and about five seconds after a change you make on this device |
| Every hour, Every 2 hours, Every 6 hours or Every 24 hours | On that interval, and about five seconds after a change you make on this device |
| Manual | Only when you sync by hand, with Sync now (“Only when you sync by hand”) |
With Instant or an interval, sync also runs as soon as you choose it, and when ZestSSH starts or comes back to the front. Every sync both fetches and sends.
With Instant, changes from your other devices arrive every 5 minutes, and also when ZestSSH starts, when it comes back to the front, and with each change you make here. A look that finds nothing new downloads nothing.
A pause holds all of them back.
Unless you change it, sync runs every 15 minutes. The choice is kept on this device; your other devices keep their own.
When two devices changed the same thing
Section titled “When two devices changed the same thing”Each device remembers every item as it was when that device last synced: each host, key, group, snippet and so on. When it fetches from your sync storage, it compares three copies of each item: the one on this device, the one in your storage, and the one it last synced.
| What changed since this device last synced | What sync keeps |
|---|---|
| Nothing, on either side | The item as it is |
| Only another device changed it | The other device’s change |
| Only this device changed it | This device’s change, sent with the next sync, even if other devices synced in between |
| Both changed it | The later change, by when each was made |
Some things to know about it:
- A whole item wins, not a field. If your laptop changed
web-01.example.com’s port and your phone changed its label before either synced, the later of the two changes wins, and the other change is lost. Change one device at a time when it matters. - Equal times, or unknown ones: the copy from your storage wins.
- The first sync after updating to ZestSSH 3.0, or after setting sync up anew, has no earlier copy to compare with. For hosts and snippets the later change wins; for other items the copy from your storage wins.
- Deleting: a delete wins over a change made before it or at the same time. A change made after the delete brings the item back. Deletes are remembered for two years.
- Storage restored from an older backup: where this device’s copy is newer than the one in your storage, this device’s copy is kept and sent back.
- Clocks: comparing times trusts each device’s clock. With ZestSSH Cloud, when this device’s clock is more than two minutes off the server’s, ZestSSH warns that “This device’s clock looks wrong”. Set the date and time right. Storage you run yourself gives no time to compare with, so keep each device’s clock right.
- Restore from cloud writes the copies in your storage over this device’s, item by item, without this comparison. So does joining sync on a new device.
An example: Alex pauses sync on her phone for a day and edits the note of db-01.example.com there. Meanwhile, on her laptop, she changes the port of web-01.example.com. When the phone syncs again, it takes the new port and sends the new note, and the laptop takes the note on its next sync. Both changes are kept, because each item was changed on one side only.
Next steps
Section titled “Next steps”- Cloud sync for what syncs, the storage you can use, and how the encryption works.
- Recovery key and recovery kit to keep a way back into your synced data.