Settle a conflict

Use this guide when Tressyl says a folder has conflicts to settle. A conflict happens when the same file was changed on two of your devices before they could sync (for example, edited on a laptop that was offline, and on your desktop at the same time). Tressyl never throws one of the changes away: it keeps both versions until you choose one.

Before you start

• This device sends and receives the folder (its mode is Send and receive). A device that only sends or only receives a folder can show its conflicts, open and compare the versions, but cannot settle them: settle them on a device that sends and receives the folder.
• You do not need your passphrase: settling a conflict only changes files.

How you learn about a conflict

• On the Folders tab, the folder’s row says n conflicts to settle.
• While Tressyl is open, your desktop also shows a notification Conflicts to settle, with the folder’s name and how many conflicts it has. It never shows a file name: notifications can appear on the lock screen.

What a conflict looks like in the folder

Next to the file, Tressyl keeps the other version under a longer name, on every device that syncs the folder:

notes.md
notes.sync-conflict-20261001-092532-b793710.md

The name says when that version was changed (date and time, UTC) and the start of the identifier of the device that changed it. Both files are ordinary files: you can open them with your usual apps.

Choose the version to keep

1. On the Folders tab, click See conflicts on the folder’s row.
2. Each file with a conflict is listed with its versions: the current version, and each other version, each with the device that made it and how long ago it changed. If the file was deleted since, the first line says which device deleted it.
3. To compare them, click Open on a version (it opens with your usual app for that kind of file) or Show in folder (your file manager opens on it). If you want to keep parts of both, merge them by hand into the current version first, save it, then keep the current version.
4. Click Keep this one on the version you want.
5. Read what the page says happens to the other versions, then click Keep this version.

The version you kept takes the file’s normal name on all your devices, and the conflict disappears from the list everywhere.

A file that was deleted

If a device deleted the file after the conflict, its deletion counts as its version. Click Keep this one on another version to bring the file back, or Keep it deleted to leave it deleted: then every other version goes, as described below.

Keep one device’s versions of every file

When the work done on one machine is the right one (for example, you worked offline on your laptop and want to keep all of it):

1. On the conflicts page, click Keep this device’s versions, or Keep versions from followed by the name of another device. Only devices that wrote at least one of the listed versions have a button.
2. Read the page: how many files will take that device’s version, how many conflicts do not involve that device (those stay in the list, to settle one by one), and what happens to the other versions.
3. Click Keep these versions.

For each file, Tressyl keeps that device’s latest version: the file as that device last left it, or if it deleted the file, the file stays deleted. A file that changed in the meantime is left alone and stays in the list. The page then says how many conflicts were settled and how many are left.

Where the other versions go

• If the folder keeps a version history, the versions you did not keep are moved into the folder’s .tressyl-versions folder: you can still get them back from there.
• If it keeps no history, they are deleted. The page tells you which case applies before you confirm.

Settling by hand

You can also settle a conflict without the app: delete the .sync-conflict- file (or rename it over the original if it is the version you want). Tressyl sees the change and the conflict disappears on all your devices.

If a step fails