How to exclude multiple directories with rsync?

I am trying to backup my home directory using rsync, and I want to exclude some of the directories that contain junk. I want to specifically exclude /home/ben/.ccache and /home/ben/build. Unfortunately the documentation for rsync was information overload and didn't answer my question. This is what I tried:

rsync -arv --exclude "/home/ben/.ccache:/home/ben/build" /home/ben /media/ben/thumbdrive/

What is the right way to do this?

1

3 Answers

OK I feel really dumb. Before I even posted this question my friend showed me how to do it and it is really simple. To exclude multiple directories you just use multiple --exclude=path switches. So my command above properly written is as follows:

rsync -arv --exclude=.ccache --exclude=build /home/ben /media/ben/thumbdrive/

Note: Use relative paths with exclude. The paths are relative to the source directory, here /home/ben.

10

When having multiple directories and/or files to exclude, make a text file and use the --exclude-from switch. Make a file called exclude_me.txt and in it list your exclusions. Example (/home/ben/exclude_me.txt):

.ccache
build
.java
.gvfs
.xsession-errors

Then your rsync would look something like this:

rsync -arv --exclude-from='/home/ben/exclude_me.txt' /home/ben /media/ben/thumbdrive/

This is some information on filter rules that may help:

• /dir/ means exclude the root folder /dir
• /dir/* means get the root folder /dir but not the contents

• dir/ means exclude any folder anywhere where the name contains dir/

• Examples excluded: /dir/, /usr/share/directory/, /var/spool/dir/ /var/spool/lpd/cf means skip files that start with cf within any folder within /var/spool/lpd

Also see the filter rules section on the man page.

4

You can also exclude multiple paths within curly braces:

rsync -arv --exclude={.ccache,build} /home/ben /media/ben/thumbdrive/

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