How to Exclude Files and Directories in Linux Rsync

1. Exclude All Files With a Specified Extension in Linux
2. Use the -exclude Option to Exclude a Specific Directory in Linux
3. Exclude Multiple Directories in Linux

The rsync is a powerful command-line tool for synchronizing files and directories between two sites using a remote shell.

With the rsync command, you can copy data and files between systems and make additional backups.

Also, you can exclude one or more files or folders from a copy of the data depending on the names and locations.

Exclude All Files With a Specified Extension in Linux

A file with a specified extension can also be excluded. Run the following command to exclude all files with the .txt extension, for example:

$ rsync -avz --exclude=*.txt source/ destination

Output:

sending incremental file list
thanosdir2/thanosdir3/

sent 203 bytes  received 20 bytes  446.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

Use the -exclude Option to Exclude a Specific Directory in Linux

The sync or copy operation can also be disallowed from a specified directory. The directory name is specified using the -exclude option.

We’ll exclude the directory thanosdir from the list in the example below.

$ rsync -avrz --exclude=thanosdir3 source/ destination

Output:

sending incremental file list
created directory destination
./
thanos.txt
thanos1.txt
thanos2.txt
thanosdir/
thanosdir/thanosdir1/
thanosdir2/
thanosdir4/

sent 391 bytes  received 130 bytes  1,042.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

Exclude Multiple Directories in Linux

You can also filter out any directories that fit a particular pattern. For example, any directories under source that begin with the letter t should be excluded:

$ rsync -avrz --exclude=t* source/ destination

Output:

sending incremental file list

sent 56 bytes  received 12 bytes  136.00 bytes/sec
total size is 0  speedup is 0.00

All the directories with the letter t are excluded, as seen in the output.