GoodSync Sync Conflicts Explained and How to Resolve Them
A conflict is not an error — it is GoodSync refusing to guess which of your two edited versions deserves to live. Here is what triggers it, what your options are, and how offices stop it from happening every week.
✍️ Technical Anshu💻 Two-Way Sync⏱️ 8 minute read
🎥 Conflicts appear in the Analyze tree shown in the video — this guide explains what to click when you meet one
Conflicts only exist in 2-way sync jobs, and they have one precise cause: since the last successful sync, the same file changed on both sides. Maybe you edited the price list on the desktop while your colleague edited it on the laptop. GoodSync knows both copies are newer than the last common version, and it honestly cannot tell which edits matter. So it does the only safe thing — it marks the file as a conflict and touches neither copy. Understanding that one sentence turns conflicts from scary red warnings into a thirty-second decision.
Analyze — one file, two newer versions, no safe winner
price-list-2026.xlsx — changed on BOTH sidesCONFLICT
Left: modified today 11:42, 182 KBNEWER
Right: modified today 11:15, 179 KBOLDER
⚠ GoodSync will not overwrite either copy until you pick a side — or an automatic rule does
👆 A textbook conflict. Newer does not automatically mean righter — the 11:42 edit might be three cells, while the 11:15 edit added a whole sheet. That is why the human reads first.
1
The Two Conflict Types You Will Actually Meet
Changed on both sides — the classic. Same file, edited in two places since the last sync. One version must win; the other survives only as a saved copy (see Fix 3)
Changed on one side, deleted on the other — someone deleted the file on PC A while someone else was editing it on PC B. GoodSync asks rather than resurrecting or destroying work silently
What is not a conflict: a file edited on one side only. That is a normal change and it simply propagates. If you are seeing conflicts on files only one person touches, check that both PCs' clocks are right — wrong system time manufactures fake conflicts
2
Resolve a Conflict by Hand — The Safe Thirty Seconds
Run Analyze and find the conflicted file in the tree
Click the conflict item to see both versions — size and modified time for each side
If the answer is not obvious, open both copies and look. For office documents this takes less time than re-doing lost work
Set the direction for that file — copy Left to Right or Right to Left — then run Sync. Your chosen version becomes the file on both sides
When the same file keeps conflicting, the problem is workflow, not software — go to Fix 4
3
Automatic Rules — and the Safety Net Under Them
If your team cannot stop to adjudicate every file, Job Options offer automatic conflict handling, and GoodSync's business documentation describes the philosophy plainly: the job resolves the conflict by a rule, secures the winning side, and saves the overwritten version rather than destroying it.
Typical rule: newer file wins — reasonable for logs and one-person folders, risky for documents two people genuinely edit
The overwritten loser goes to the _gsdata_\_saved_ history folder, so an automatic decision can still be undone by hand
Be honest about the limit: no sync tool merges the inside of a file. GoodSync picks a whole winning file. If two people edited different pages of the same document, one set of edits must be re-applied manually from the saved copy
4
Prevent Conflicts Instead of Resolving Them
One editor at a time — the real fix is social: a shared file being edited in two places at once is a process problem. Whoever opens it, works; the other waits
Sync more often — real-time or short-interval Auto shrinks the window in which both sides can diverge. A conflict needs two edits between syncs; sync every few minutes and that almost never happens
Do not park working files in the sync folder — files that live open all day (accounts data, a shared spreadsheet) belong to one master PC, protected by a 1-way backup job, not a 2-way street
Keep PC clocks correct — automatic time sync on every machine in the job. GoodSync compares times to judge changes; a PC running an hour wrong invents conflicts from nothing
🔴 Never do this: do not resolve a pile of conflicts by picking “newest wins” for everything without opening a single file. The newest copy of an accounts file can be the one where someone deleted half the entries by mistake an hour ago. Conflicts are the one moment your sync tool asks for your judgement — the video shows the Analyze screen where that judgement happens.
🎥 Watch the Complete Video
Watch the Analyze tree in the video so a real conflict, when it comes, looks familiar instead of alarming.
If I pick the wrong side in a conflict, is the other version gone forever?
Usually not. When a version is overwritten by sync, GoodSync saves the replaced file into the _gsdata_\_saved_ folder on that side, if saved versions are enabled for the job — which is one more reason to turn that option on for every 2-way job. Go there quickly though; saved folders are a recovery net, not an archive.
Why does the same file conflict again and again?
Because two people or two programs keep changing it on both sides between syncs — classic culprits are a shared spreadsheet, a browser profile folder, or an app that rewrites its data file on every open on both PCs. Either give the file a single home with a 1-way backup, or accept conflicts as the cost of true simultaneous editing and resolve them by hand.
Can GoodSync merge the changes from both versions into one file?
No — and no file sync tool can. Merging the inside of a document is a job for the application itself or for version-control software. GoodSync's job ends at picking the winning whole file and preserving the loser in the saved folder so nothing is silently destroyed.
This guide is based on the Technical Anshu GoodSync Explained video • Stuck on any step? Ask in the video comments — you will get a reply there 🙏