rsync: Excluding pattern in exclude file desn't work

Question

I'm trying to exclude all vim backup files (hidden *.swp files) from the sync. The pattern in my exclude file looks like this:

**.swp

My rsync call:

rsync -ravu --exclude=~/sync/exclude.txt /home/username/Documents/ remotehost:/home/username/Documents/

The file sits in a subdirectory of the sync root. It deosn't work. Rsync copies the vim backup file as well. I also tried: *.swp

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

You're using --exclude (which expects a pattern) rather than --exclude-from (which expects the name of a file containing patterns).

You also do not need -r (--recursive) with -a (--archive) as -a enables recursive syncing. In fact, -a is the same as -rlptgoD according to the manual.

Answer 2

You don't need the ** and for a single pattern you might as well just use --exclude. The --include pattern ensures that directories matching the --exclude pattern are included in the copy.

rsync -a  --include '*/' --exclude='.*.swp' /home/username/Documents/ remotehost:/home/username/Documents/

If your remote username has /home/username as its home directory you can further simplify with a relative path:

rsync -a  --include '*/' --exclude='.*.swp' /home/username/Documents/ remotehost:Documents/

Bear also in mind that vim will use other filenames for its swap file if one matching *.swp already exists or is in use. But you'll catch most of them with this single pattern. Here's what the documentation warns:

If this file already exists (e.g., when you are recovering from a crash) a warning is given and another extension is used, ".swo", ".swn", etc.

You could adapt the exclusion pattern to use .*.sw[a-p] if you were sufficiently concerned.