The previous AppleScript post is an earlier version of nearly the same thing. I posted it here to be able to write a new script for where I work. It’s intention is to keep an on-site duplicate of an off-site backup. This can of course be used for simple backups and/or folder syncing operations if given the appropriate trigger(s).

Also, as the previous post, this script calls an rsync binary in a custom install location. Please be aware of that.

-- The name of the volume to watch for.
property trigger : "Backup"

-- The paths of the folders to sync. Drag-n-drop supported (choose "Alias").
property theFolders : {"/Do not/forget to/add quotes around", "/And/commas between/items"}

-- See the rsync manual (man rsync) for more info.
property rsync_options : "-rtE --ignore-existing"

property skip : {} -- Leave empty. Meant to hold items from theFolders which gave rsync an error so we can start over but then ignore items in this list.

on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
  repeat with i in added_items
    if i is trigger then
      do_it(skip)
      return
    end if
  end repeat
end adding folder items to

on run
  do_it(skip)
end run

on do_it(skip)
  tell application "System Events" to set trigger_path to POSIX path of every disk whose name is trigger -- When a drive is mounted and its previous mount point was not removed the new mount point will be given a unique number to follow the name (which isn't shown in the Finder), e.g. "/Volumes/Backup 1". This asks the System for the path rather than us blindly using text.
  if trigger_path is {} then
    display dialog "The drive '" & trigger & "' does not appear to be mounted. :("
    return
  end if
  set rsync_options to rsync_options & " "
  repeat with i in theFolders
    tell application "Finder"
      if not (exists (i as POSIX file)) then
        set end of skip to i as text
      end if
    end tell
    log skip
    if i is not in skip then
      set end of skip to i as text
      try
        do shell script "/usr/local/bin/rsync " & rsync_options & quoted form of i & " '" & trigger_path & "/'"
      on error the_err
        if i is last item in theFolders then
          display dialog "rsync encountered a problem: " & the_err
        else
          if button returned of (display dialog "rsync encountered a problem: " & the_err & return buttons {"Cancel", "Continue"}) is "Continue" then
            do_it(skip)
          end if
        end if
      end try
    end if
  end repeat
end do_it

This script includes error handling that isn’t well tested. Getting it to work with it at all was a bit of a trick (particularly if not (exists (i as POSIX file)) since if not (exists POSIX file i) does not work as expected). So that whole “skip” idea may not work as intended if you are asked to continue. The last do_it(skip) call may need to be my do_it(skip) instead.

This is to correct file times on photos that were imported from cameras with bad date settings or when they have been transferred to-and-fro and picked up the wrong data some where or after re-encoding high bit rate video to save a few GBs. [This does not alter the date atoms encoded in (most?) video files. ffmpeg can do that, however.]
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