desync(1)

🌸 NAME 🌸

okay bestie, welcome to the desync(1) page for desync-tar — Store a directory tree in a catar archive or index. It’s giving archive girlie with index-file potential, and we’re obsessed. ✨

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

desync tar <catar|index> <source> [flags]

💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

So here’s the tea: desync tar encodes a directory tree into a catar archive, or alternatively into an index file with the archive chunked into a store. Use - to write the output — catar or index — to STDOUT. Periodt. 💅

If the desired output is an index file (caidx) rather than a catar, you can provide the -i option as well as a store. Using -i is equivalent to first using the tar command to create a catar, then the make command to chunk it into a store and produce an index file. With -i, less disk space is required as no intermediary catar is created. There can however be a difference in performance depending on file size. Ngl, that part matters. 🫶

By default, input is read from local disk. Using --input-format=tar, the input can be a tar file or a stream from STDIN with -. Slay. 🌟

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

No skipped flags, fr fr:

• --ca-cert="" — trust authorities in this file, instead of OS trust store. 🔐
• -r, --cache-repair[=true] — replace invalid chunks in the cache from source.
• -m, --chunk-size="16:64:256" — min:avg:max chunk size in kb.
• --client-cert="" — path to client certificate for TLS authentication.
• --client-key="" — path to client key for TLS authentication.
• -n, --concurrency=10 — number of concurrent goroutines, -1 to let desync choose: the number of CPUs for chunking and hashing, adapting to each store up to 128 for transfers.
• -e, --error-retry=3 — number of times to retry in case of network error.
• -b, --error-retry-base-interval=500ms — initial retry delay, increases linearly with each subsequent attempt.
• -h, --help[=false] — help for tar.
• -i, --index[=false] — create index file (caidx), not catar.
• --input-format="disk" — input format, 'disk' or 'tar'.
• --no-time[=false] — set file timestamps to zero in the archive.
• -x, --one-file-system[=false] — don't cross filesystem boundaries.
• -s, --store="" — target store (used with -i).
• --tar-add-root[=false] — pretend that all tar elements have a common root directory.
• -t, --trust-insecure[=false] — trust invalid certificates.

🫶 OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS 🫶

These are inherited from the parent commands, not invented by tar:

• --config="" — config file (default $HOME/.config/desync/config.json).
• --digest="sha512-256" — digest algorithm, sha512-256 or sha256.
• --verbose[=false] — verbose mode.

🌈 EXAMPLE 🌈

Copy-paste core, bestie:

desync tar documents.catar $HOME/Documents
desync tar -i -s /path/to/local pics.caidx $HOME/Pictures

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• desync(1) — the parent page, go say hi. 🫶

📜 HISTORY 📜

• 20-Oct-2026 — Auto generated by spf13/cobra.

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🎀 source/version desync, dated Oct 2026, manual desync(1) — okay bye bestie, mwah! 💋