Updated readme

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@ -14,33 +14,36 @@ Dropbox.
Maestral currently does not support Dropbox Paper, the management of Dropbox teams and
the management of shared folder settings. If you need any of this functionality, please
use the Dropbox website or the official client. Maestral does support the syncing of
use the Dropbox website or the official client. Maestral does support syncing
multiple Dropbox accounts and excluding local files from sync with a ".mignore" file.
The focus on "simple" file syncing does come with advantages: on macOS, the Maestral App
bundle is 80% smaller than the official Dropbox app (50 MB vs 290 MB) and uses much less
memory (100 MB vs 800 MB for a medium sized Dropbox on macOS). The memory usage will
depend on the size of your synced Dropbox folder and can be further reduced when running
Maestral without a GUI.
bundle is significantly smaller than the official Dropbox app (20 MB vs 290 MB) and uses
much less memory (100 MB vs 800 MB for a medium sized Dropbox on macOS). The memory usage
will depend on the size of your synced Dropbox folder and can be further reduced when
running Maestral without a GUI.
Maestral uses the public Dropbox API which, unlike their own client, does not support
syncing only those parts of a file which changed ("binary diff"). Maestral therefore may
use more bandwidth that the official client. However, it will never upload or download a
file if it already exists with the same content locally and in the cloud and it will
sync moved files or folders without transferring any files whenever possible.
Maestral uses the public Dropbox API which, unlike the official client, does not support
transferring only those parts of a file which changed ("binary diff"). Maestral may
therefore use more bandwidth that the official client. However, it will avoid uploading
or downloading a file if it already exists with the same content locally or in the cloud.
## Installation
A binary is provided for macOS High Sierra and higher and can be downloaded from the
An app bundle is provided for macOS High Sierra and higher and can be downloaded from the
Releases tab. On other platforms, please download and install the Python package from PyPI:
```console
$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade maestral
```
If you intend to use the graphical user interface, you also need to specify the GUI option
during installation. This will install the `maestral-qt` frontend and `PyQt5`:
```console
$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade maestral[gui]
```
More detailed installation instructions are given in the
[Wiki](https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral-dropbox/wiki/Installation-Requirements).
@ -69,9 +72,9 @@ commands. The most important are:
- `maestral ls DROPBOX_PATH`: Lists the contents of a directory on Dropbox.
- `maestral notify snooze N`: Snoozes desktop notifications for N minutes.
Maestral currently supports the syncing of multiple Dropbox accounts by running multiple
instances with different configuration files. This needs to be configured from the
command line by passing the option `--config-name` to `maestral start` or `maestral gui`.
Maestral supports syncing multiple Dropbox accounts by running multiple instances
with different configuration files. This needs to be configured from the command
line by passing the option `--config-name` to `maestral start` or `maestral gui`.
Maestral will then select an existing config with the given name or create a new one.
For example:
@ -79,6 +82,7 @@ For example:
$ maestral start --config-name="personal"
$ maestral start --config-name="work"
```
This will start two instances of Maestral, syncing a private and a work account,
respectively. Configs will be automatically cleared when unlinking an account and you can
list all currently linked accounts with `maestral configs`: