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I'm using rsync to recursively sync a remote folder tree that looks something like this:

/folderA/a1/cache
/folderA/a1/cache/A1
/folderA/a1/cache/A2
/folderA/a1/somefolder
/folderA/a1/someotherfolder
/folderA/a2/somefolder/cache
/folderB/cache/
/folderB/b1/somefolder/cache
/folderB/b1/somefolder/yetanotherfolder/cache
/folderB/b1/somefolder/yetanotherfolder/cache/B1
/folderB/b1/somefolder/yetanotherfolder/cache/B2

I don't know what the folder tree will look like and it will change over time. So what I want to be able to do is recursively rsync the above but exclude the folder "cache" and any sub folders it contains:

/folderA/a1
/folderA/a1/somefolder
/folderA/a1/someotherfolder
/folderA/a2/somefolder
/folderB/
/folderB/b1/somefolder
/folderB/b1/somefolder/yetanotherfolder/

Any suggestions?

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You want the --exclude flag. For example, a local rsync:

rsync -a --exclude cache/ src_folder/ target_folder/

It really is that simple -- that exclude rule will match a directory named cache anywhere in your tree. The / at the end forces it to match directories, so it won't exclude a file named cache.

You can match on paths as well. Given the following tree:

a1/cache/
b1/cache/
sub/a1/cache/

--exclude a1/cache/ will match a1/cache and sub/a1/cache but not b1/cache. And --exclude /a1/cache/ will match only a1/cache.

There's a lot more that can be done with rsync filtering. Look for --exclude, --include, --filter, and especially the "FILTER RULES" and "PATTERN MATCHING RULES" sections on the rsync man page:

https://www.samba.org/ftp/rsync/rsync.html#FILTER_RULES

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  • 1
    Doh!!. Thanks it is the simple answers that I like best :-)
    – TheEdge
    Jan 16, 2011 at 0:38
  • 2
    What about not anywhere in the tree? Like, only exclude a/cache. UPD See this answer
    – x-yuri
    Nov 12, 2015 at 15:50
  • 3
    Also --exclude /cache/ (with the leading /) will only exclude a/cache directory, not any directory named cache.
    – Amir Ali Akbari
    Dec 19, 2015 at 13:07
  • Why a/ b/ in the above command line, what does it mean?
    – Danijel
    Dec 24, 2015 at 9:13
  • 1
    @Danijel: a/ is the directory we're syncing (or copying) from; b/ is the directory we're syncing into.
    – Jander
    Dec 25, 2015 at 4:48

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