What Is Sync Center? How to Enable or Disable It on Windows 10/11?

What Is Sync Center?

Sync Center is a Windows built-in feature that synchronizes files between your computer and network servers. It keeps these files offline available on your computer, even when your server is slow, not connected or unavailable

With Sync Center, you are able to access a replica of the network files on your local computer even when the system is not linked to any network. That is to say, you can see all data made offline at anytime.

When Should You Use Sync Center

Not every Windows user needs Sync Center. Use it if:

• You need to access and edit network files while traveling or working remotely.
• Your organization uses Windows offline files.
• Your local office network drops frequently, and you want continuous, uninterrupted file access.

How to Use Sync Center Windows 10/11?

Open Sync Center

1. Open Control Panel.
2. Click Sync Center to continue.
3. In the pop-up window, click Manage offline files from the left panel to continue.
4. Then click Enable offline files to open Windows 10/11 Sync Center.

Then it may require you to reboot your computer to take the changes into effect. If not, do it manually.

If you want to sync folders or manage offline files on your local hard drive, the shared folder on a network server is required. So, here is the tutorial on how to create the shared folder on a network server.

Create a Shared Folder

1. Go to Network and Sharing Center and click Sharing Options.

2. Check the three options: Turn on network discovery, Turn on file and printer sharing and Turn off password protected sharing.

3. Then click Save changes to continue.

Once all steps are finished, you can begin to create a shared folder on the network server.

4. Right-click the folder you want to share and choose Properties.

5. Switch to the Sharing tab and choose Share….

6. Add Everyone to share with and give it Read/Write control.

7. Then click the Share button to continue.

8. Then go back to the Sharing tab and choose Advanced Sharing to continue.

9. Next, check the option Share this folder.

10. At last, click Apply and OK to save the changes.

Once all steps are finished, you have created the shared folder on the network server.

To sync files from the network drive or sync files to it, you also need to know the IP address of the network server.

Get the IP Address of Network Server

Now, we will show you how to get the IP address of the network server.

1. Open Command Prompt.

2. Type ipconfig in the command line window and hit Enter to continue.

3. Next, find your IPv4 address.

Sync the Network Drive to Local Computer

Now, we will show you how to sync the network drive to the local computer so as to manage your offline files.

1. Press the Windows key and R key together to open the Run dialog.
2. Type \\ plus the IP address of the network server and click OK to continue.
3. Then access the shared folder.
4. Select the files or folders you want to access at the local computer, right-click it and choose Always available offline.
5. Then wait for the process to be finished.

After that, you can access the files or folders on your local computer even though the network server is not connected. If you change either the source file or the synced files, both will keep the pace and display the same. After making it offline, you can edit it on your computer and then the source file will be synced.

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How to Configure Files in Windows 10/11 Sync Center?

How to Schedule Automatic Sync for Offline Files

In order to sync your files automatically, you can set scheduled sync for offline files.

1. Open Sync Center.

2. Right-click the offline task and choose Schedule for Offline Files.

3. Next, choose which items you want to sync on this schedule and click Next.

4. Decide when you want this sync task to begin. You can choose At a scheduled time or When an event occurs. Here, we choose a scheduled time.

5. Then set the time and click Next.

6. Name the scheduled sync and click Save changes to continue.

After all steps are finished, you have set the scheduled sync and it will begin to sync your files regularly as long as you do not remove it.

How to Change Windows Offline Files Disk Usage

The Disk Usage will show you the available disk space on your system as well as the disk space used for keeping the offline files. You can also modify it.

1. Open Sync Center.
2. Click Manage offline files on the left pane.
3. In the pop-up window, switch to the Disk Usage tab. 
4. You can see the available storage space on your system, the used space for the offline files, and the disk space for the temporary files.
5. You can also click Change limits to change it.

Encrypt Offline Files

In Windows 10/11 Sync Center, you can also encrypt it.

1. Open Sync Center.
2. Click Manage offline files.
3. Go to the Encryption tab.
4. Click the Encrypt button to continue.

Configure Windows Offline Files Network Settings

You can set your preferred time to check for slow connectivity and once a slow connection occurs. Windows will start working offline automatically.

How to Disable Sync Center?

If you do not want to use Sync Center, you can choose to disable it. To do that, you can choose to end the mobysync.exe in the Task Manager. After that, it will be disabled.

To disable it, you can also choose to do that in Sync Center itself. Open Sync Center, click Manage offline files and click Disable offline links. After that, the Sync Center will be disabled.

The above content is all about the Sync Center and shows how to use Sync Center to sync files from the network server to the local hard drive and manage the offline files. However, if you want to sync files to the network drive, how can you do it?

In the following part, we will show you the Sync Center alternative – MiniTool ShadowMaker. It enables you to sync files from a local computer to the external hard drive, internal hard drive or network drive. So, keep on your reading to find more detailed information.

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How to Sync Files to Network Drive?

While Sync Center syncs network files for offline access, it doesn’t support syncing files to external drives. For local file synchronization or scheduled backups, you can use a dedicated tool such as MiniTool ShadowMaker.

It is designed to back up the files, folders, disks, partitions and the operating system in Windows 11/10. It also comes with the Sync feature, ensuring the files are in two or more locations and kept in pace.

Now, we will show you how to use the Sync feature to sync files.

1. Download MiniTool ShadowMaker from the following button, install it and launch it.

MiniTool ShadowMaker TrialClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

2. Click Keep Trial.

3. Then you enter the main interface of MiniTool ShadowMaker, and go to the Sync page.

4. Click the SOURCE module to choose the files or folders you want to sync.

5. Then click the DESTINATION module to choose the target disk. If you want to sync them to the network drive, choose Shared.

6. Then click Add New and input the path, name and password of the internet server.

7. MiniTool ShadowMaker also enables you to set the automatic file. You can go to Options > Schedule Settings to do that.

8. After the sync source and destination are selected, click Sync Now to start syncing files to the network drive.

After all steps are finished, you have synced files from the local computer to the network drive. So, if you want to sync files, try MiniTool ShadowMaker.

Apart from the file backup and sync feature, MiniTool ShadowMaker also allows you to perform some recovery solutions. If your computer is crashed, you can restore it to a previous state with the system image created before.

In addition, MiniTool ShadowMaker is also a hard drive clone tool that helps you to clone OS from HDD to SSD without data loss.

Sync Center vs MiniTool ShadowMaker Comparison Table

Both Sync Center and MiniTool ShadowMaker help protect your files, but they serve different purposes. The following table highlights their key differences.

Bottom Line

To sum up, this post shows what the Sync Center is and how to enable and disable Sync Center in Windows 10/11. If you have any different ideas for this tool, you can share them in the comment zone.

If you have any problem with MiniTool ShadowMaker, please feel free to contact us via the email [email protected] and we will reply to you as soon as possible.

Sync Center FAQ