Dropbox, Inc.

Geoffry Song

Nipunn Koorapati

Isaac Goldberg

John Lai

Sujay Jayakar

Robert Ying

Elmer Charles Jubb, Iv

Gautam Gupta

Adam Arbree

Sourabh Yerfule

Kelson Reiss

Pranav Vishnu Ramabhadran

Parker Timmerman

Zihao Yang

Lisa Fan

Andrew Haven

Joshua Warner

Jordi Paris Ferrer

Elmer Charles Jubb

The present technology is directed to providing a backup service utilizing a bi-directional synchronization architecture. In order to support both a backup service and a bi-directional synchronization service, the present technology can utilize a special object called an anchor that only permits unidirectional synchronization. Additionally, the present technology separates the backup service from the bi-directional synchronization service. This separation includes utilizing a separate backup directory and bi-directional synchronization directory on a client device, which in turn benefits from the use of a separate instance of the synchronization service on the client device. Further, at the content management system various steps are taken to separate the backup directory from the bi-directional synchronization directory to ensure no objects from the backup directory appear in a user interface related to bi-directional synchronization, and vice versa.

Backup feature provided by bidirectional synchronized content management system

A system can selectively synchronize content based on synchronization settings. In some examples, a client stores a local tree representing a local set of content items associated with an account on a content management system, the local tree including respective local nodes corresponding to the local set of content items. The client stores a remote tree representing a remote set of content items associated with the account, the remote set being stored at the content management system and including respective remote nodes corresponding to the remote set of content items. The client receives a synchronization setting disabling local storage of the content item. In response, the client deletes a local copy of the content item, removes a corresponding local node from the local tree, and adds, to a remote node on the remote tree, an attribute indicating that local storage of the content item has been disabled.

Selective synchronization of content items in a content management system

The present technology pertains to synchronizing contents of a directory external to a synchronized directory by a content management system. The content management system is configured to synchronize only objects in the synchronized directory. Accordingly, the present technology creates an anchor object that represents the directory external to the synchronized directory within the synchronized directory. The anchor object includes special attributes that indicate to the synchronization client that the anchor object represents an external directory, and allows the contents of that directory to be synchronized directly to a server on the content management system without first storing the contents of the external directory on the hard drive of the client device.

Synchronizing an external location

The disclosed technology relates to a system configured to compute a difference between a remote tree data structure representing a server state for content items associated with an account on a content management system and a sync tree data structure representing a known synchronization state between the content management system and the computing system. The system is configured to generate, based on the difference, a set of operations that when performed on the computing system update the content items stored on the client device to converge a file system state on the computing system and the server state.

Content management client synchronization service

The disclosed technology relates to a system configured to compute a difference between a local tree data structure representing a file system state for content items associated with a user account on the computing system and a sync tree data structure representing a known synchronization state between a content management system and the computing system. The system is configured to generate, based on the difference, a set of operations that when performed update the content items stored on the content management system to converge a server state for content items associated the user account on the content management system and the file system state.

The disclosed technology relates to a system configured to identify at least one difference between a sync tree and at least one of a remote tree and a local tree. The sync tree represents a known synced state between a server state and a file system state, the remote tree represents the server state, and the local tree represents the file system state. The system may further generate, based on the at least one difference, a set of operations configured to converge the server state and the file system state and manage the execution of the set of operations.

The disclosed technology relates to a system configured to obtain a set of tree data structures including a remote tree representing a server state of content items associated with a user account on a content management system, a local tree representing a file system state of content items associated with the user account on a client device, and a sync tree representing a known sync state between the content management system and the client device. The system is configured to determine that the user account on the content management system includes at least one modification not synchronized to the client device by comparing the remote tree and the sync tree.

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Geoffry Song