Sync Hold’em Manager across 2 computers

OK, if you are like me you play poker on more than one computer. I have my laptop for out on the road and around the house, and I have my multi-monitor desktop setup with my skype and camtasia and teamveiwer for when I am ready to put in a serious grind. The only problem is how do we sync our hand histories between the two?

I have tried a lot of different ways, USB flash drive, emailing them to myself, sharing them across the home network and copying them from computer to computer. They all work but they are also all a pain in the butt. I am not a very organized person so I was never sure if I got them all synced up. You want to have as many hands as possible for your HUD stats, plus you need a complete copy of everything for tax purposes. So is there an easy way to do all this, something that we can setup one time and then forget about?

The answer I found was Dropbox.com. All I had to do was download the software and set up a free account and I was ready to go. Dropbox creates a folder in your “my documents” folder whose contents automatically sync to your online account anytime something is changed. If you have dropbox installed on a second computer these files will automatically change as well as long as both computers are connected to the internet. Sounds pretty handy for what we need, right? Well, it gets even better. these files are also stored online so if something happens to your computer you can always rebuild your database. You don’t have to worry about it if your hard drive fails or if lightning hits your house and fries your computer, you just sync them up on your new computer and off you go.



So, here is how I have my dropbox setup. There are three folders inside that I use for my hand histories, they are-
1. HAND HISTORIES laptop
2. HAND HISTORIES desktop
3. HH archive

On my laptop I changed the archive folder in the auto-import settings from this:




To this:



Then I did the same thing on my desktop pointing it to HH desktop. Then I added my HH desktop folder to my auto-import list on my laptop like this-



I also added the HAND HISTORIES laptop to my desktop auto import. Notice that these folders get archived to HH archive in the dropbox folder so all the files end up in one place. It only takes about 15 minutes to install the software and set up the folders and then everything is automatic.

This is so much easier than running back and forth with a flash drive or trying to network your SQL databases. You literally just set it and forget it. The only thing you really need to remember is that Hold’em Manager waits 15 minutes before moving your hand histories to the archive so if you finish a grind and shut down your computer right away the hands might not show up in the dropbox until you turn that computer back on and start up Hold’em Manager again.

Good Luck.