Here are some best practices to help you get the most from the Egnyte Desktop App for Windows and Mac.
1. Prevent Applications from Scanning Desktop App Folders
If you have any applications that will scan a lot of files at a time (e.g., antivirus software, malware detectors, file indexers, etc.), set exclusions that will prevent them from scanning the Desktop App or any volumes created by it. For antivirus software, please review our Anti-Virus Policy article for best practices.
For security purposes, you may continue to scan the temporary working directory used by the Desktop App to store accessed files (under '~/Library/Application Support in Mac and '%localappdata%' in Windows). This will prevent triggering unnecessary bandwidth usage and ensure that content that is accessed and downloaded can be scanned by antivirus software as it appears inside the working directory.
2. Disable Previews for Less Bandwidth Usage and Better Performance
This will significantly reduce the amount of data that needs to be retrieved over the network and improve performance.
For Windows: Open File Explorer and click on the View option. If the Preview pane is highlighted, click on it to deselect the option.
Egnyte ended support for Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 on January 14th, 2020.
For Mac: From Finder, click on the Settings (gear) icon and select Show View Options. Uncheck Show icon preview and Show preview column.
3. Disable the 'Recent Files' List on Commonly Used Applications
If you still see slow performance, after following the best practices for scanning software and previews, we recommend disabling menu items that show recently accessed files in commonly used applications. For example, this is possible with MS Office applications and Adobe products. Doing this will prevent the application from making background requests for recently accessed files from the Desktop App, which subsequently prevents unnecessary background network traffic and can further improve performance.
4. Avoid Uploading Large Amounts of Data at One Time
While it's possible, we do not recommend using the desktop app for migrating large amounts of data at once (e.g., more than 10,000 files, 100GB or half the remaining amount of disk space on the machine at one time). The Desktop App temporarily uses up to 2x the amount of disk space when new content is added (one copy to edit and one copy that is queued for upload). This ensures that users have immediate access to newly added content without the risk of file corruption. The storage used is only temporary and is cleared once the files are uploaded.
Adding large numbers of small files may take longer than expected due to the overhead of processing files for upload.
5. Avoid Using Unsupported File Types Like Active Database Files
Avoid using unsupported file types like active database files. Common examples include pst, eml, odb, qbb, and mdb files. Using such files within the Desktop App can result in extremely high bandwidth usage and introduces the possibility of data loss or corruption.
Package files are special files on Mac that should not be used because they are converted to directories when uploaded to the cloud.
6. Create Shortcuts to Commonly Used Folders
Go directly to the folder you work in without having to traverse your Egnyte file structure.
For Windows: Click on the Desktop App icon in your icon tray and click the Settings icon. Click the three dots next to the desired drive, choose Configure, type the desired path in the Cloud start path field. The Cloud start path format is as follows: /Private/{username}/{folder_name} or /Shared/{folder_name}. Please ensure that you have permissions for the folder you map to.
For Mac: Click on the Egnyte icon in your menu bar and select the Settings (gear) option. Click the three dots next to the drive and choose Configure from the menu. In the Cloud start path section, enter the pathway to the folder you'd like to create the shortcut for and click Save. If you wanted to create a shortcut for your Private folder, you'd enter /Private into the field.
You can also customize the sidebar to work with the Desktop App. For more information, please refer to this Apple support article.
7. Avoid Using Shortcuts (.LNK Files) Inside the Drive on Windows
We do not recommend using shortcuts within the Desktop App on Windows. If you must use shortcuts as part of your workflow keep the following points in mind:
- Performance will be impacted when opening folders with shortcuts. This is because explorer will typically read the underlying content of the shortcut when the folder is opened.
- Shortcuts created on the Desktop App will not work within the Web UI, Mobile App or any drive mapped to Storage Sync. They can only be used on other Windows machines which have the Desktop App installed and a drive mapped with the same letter, label, cloud start path, and version of Windows.
8. Avoid Browsing Folders Using Icon or Cover Flow View With Mac
When browsing folders in the Desktop App, you can improve browsing performance by using the List or Column view (instead of the Icon or Cover Flow view). This will prevent Finder from pulling additional data needed to create icon preview images.