I've recently been looking at a number free File synchronization utilities. I'd previously used SyncToy from Microsoft. It worked well for me for a little while, but then I ended up loosing a number of files because it removed files that I didn't actually want to delete. The horror of loosing precious files made me a bit wary about SyncToy. It also didn't have the sync options and features I wanted.

After searching and trying out a few of them,  I've settled on the open source file syncronizer called Synkron. Synkron has a relatively clean looking interface, with many features and options, such as:

• Timed synchronization scheduler
• Syncing of multiple folders
• Custom filters
• Restore files that were overwritten during synchronization
• Add files and folders to black list to make sure they won't be synchronised in the future
• Tabs allow you to have more synchronisations running at once

Synkron written using the open source, multi-platform framework called QT. QT allows applications written with it to be easily ported to Windows, Mac, Linux and even mobile devices. There also seems to be a pretty big community built around using QT for open source applications. We're looking forward to the possiblity of using this framework to develop applications in the future too. In any case, Synkron seems to be quite a little gem of a utility!

Other open source contenders worth mentioning for file sync, are:

• FreeFileSync - Less features than Synkron, traded for a little more simplicity.
• Toucan - Sync, backup and secure, from an app that's portable on a Flashdrive (Synkron has a portable version too). 
• OneSync - Sync via the internet, and even detects file renames and moves, but doesn't support scheduling and only runs on Windows.