51. Keep Your iDisk in Sync  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 45 Sign Up for .Mac 50 Connect to Your iDisk
 SEE ALSO 100 Synchronize Your Information Using .Mac
iDisk is at its best when you use it to keep all your Macsif you're fortunate enough to have more than onein sync with each other. Using this feature of Mac OS X, you can keep a copy of your iDisk on your own computer at all times, making access to it as fast as accessing your own hard disk. Any changes you make to your local iDisk are published to your remote iDisk on the .Mac server in the background, without requiring any effort from you. From your remote iDisk, the changes are propagated automatically to any other Macs that are logged in to your .Mac account. No matter which Mac you use, the files, folders, and applications you've placed into your iDisk are immediately available. You can elect to synchronize your iDisk manually, if you choose. For instance, while you're trying to get work done online, you might not want your Mac to take up precious bandwidth synchronizing with the remote iDisk server. But if you let your Mac synchronize automatically, you can use your iDisk as your primary disk for important files that you need to access a lotand those files will always be at your fingertips, regardless of which of your Mac computers you're using. | 1. | Open the .Mac Preferences Open the System Preferences using the Apple menu. Click the .Mac icon to open the .Mac Preferences pane. Click the iDisk tab to view the iDisk options. 51. Keep Your iDisk in Sync  | | 2. | Turn On iDisk Syncing Click the Start button under the iDisk Syncing Off heading. This action enables iDisk synchronization and kicks off the first synchronization process, which might take a long time, depending on how much data is in your remote iDisk and how fast your Internet connection is. The iDisk status text updates to reflect that the local iDisk is now starting up, and the rotating "sync" icon appears next to the iDisk icon in the Finder's Sidebar until the first sync is complete. (The Start button changes to read Stop when iDisk syncing is on.)  TIP Click the ? button in the dialog box for further information about how automatic and manual syncing work. NOTE After the initial sync process is complete, the local iDisk also appears on your Desktop, as a separate volume that you can use as you would any other disk. (You can hide the iDisk on your Desktop by turning off the CDs, DVDs, and iPods option in the Finder Preferences , under the General tab.) Whenever your iDisk is being synchronized, its progress is shown at the bottom of the Finder window when you're looking at the iDisk's contents. | | 3. | Choose Synchronization Option The default behavior is for your iDisk to be synchronized automatically, whenever Mac OS X detects that your local or remote iDisk has been changed. The synchronization process can be bandwidth- intensive ; if you don't want your Mac to be constantly exchanging information with the .Mac server as you use your local iDisk, select the Manually option. However, it's recommended that you keep your iDisk synchronization set to Automatically at all times, unless you're on a very constricted network connection or an older Mac with limited processor power. Some special iDisk folders from the .Mac server are not copied to your local computer: Backup , which holds archives written by Apple's Backup application; Library , which keeps application-specific data for .Mac services; and Software , which has copies of many pieces of shareware provided for download by Apple. You don't need these folders or their files on your local hard disk, and you wouldn't want to download all those files at once! NOTE The Backup, Library , and Software folders you can see on your local iDisk become aliases to their counterparts on the remote iDisk on the .Mac server so that you can still connect and view them. While you are disconnected from the remote .Mac iDisk, however, the local aliases might appear with the wrong icon. If you double-click the icons, the remote .Mac iDisk mounts and the correct aliases are restored. | | 4. | Synchronize Your iDisk Manually
Wait until Mac OS X has completed synchronizing your local iDisk for the first time; the status message at the bottom of a Finder window showing your iDisk's contents tells you when the process is done.
If you have selected to synchronize your iDisk manually, you can start a new sync process at any time by clicking the circular Sync button next to the iDisk icon in the left pane of the Finder window. Alternatively, right-click (or Control +click) the iDisk icon on your Desktop and select Sync Now from the contextual menu that appears.
Repeat steps 1 through 4 for all your Macs; when all of them have been synchronized for the first time, automatic synchronization will operate efficiently in the background, keeping all your computers up to date.
| | 5. | Turn Off iDisk Syncing
If you choose, you can turn off the local synchronized iDisk; simply go back to the iDisk page of the . Mac Preferences pane of the System Preferences application and click the Stop button under the iDisk Syncing On heading. If you do this, your local iDisk will be converted into a disk image and placed on your Desktop. You can keep it in a safe place (double-click it to mount it so you can access its contents) or dispose of it in the Trash, as you prefer.
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