scp without replacing existing files in the destination

Question

How do I copy an entire directory into a directory of the same name without replacing the content in the destination directory? (instead, I would like to add to the contents of the destination folder)

Answer 1

Use rsync, and pass -u if you want to only update files that are newer in the original directory, or --ignore-existing to skip all files that already exist in the destination.

rsync -au /local/directory/ host:/remote/directory/
rsync -a --ignore-existing /local/directory/ host:/remote/directory/

(Note the / on the source side: without it rsync would create /remote/directory/directory.)

Answer 2

scp will overwrite the files if you have write permissions to them.

In other words: You can make scp effectively skip said files by temporarily removing the write permissions on them (if you are the files' owner, that is).

Answer 3

Here:

rsync -azv -e ssh --delete --progress localdir/ user@remotehost:remotedir/

Note the trailing slashes — they're important.

(I have the first bit aliased to rsync-usual because I use it so often.)