Rsync Basics Tutorial With Examples

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Rsync is a tool used to synchronise files both locally and remotely on Linux systems. Commonly used for backups and mirroring, Rsync uses a delta-transfer algorithm which sends only the differences between the files.

Some common options for Rsync commands

-a : archive mode. Copies files recursively and will also preserve all file permissions and timestamps.
-n : dry-run. Rsync performs a trial run without making any changes. Commonly used with -v to see what will change before performing a real Rsync.
-P : show the progress of the transfer. Same as --progress.
-v : verbose. This option increases the amount of information you are given during the transfer.
--delete : delete files at the destination which do not exist at the source.
--exclude : used to specify files to exclude from the transfer.
--ignore-existing : skip existing files at destination. Does not affect directories.

Basic Rsync operation

To perform a copy from one location to another:

rsync -a '/origin/' '/destination'

Note the forward-slash at the end of the /origin/ directory name. If only transferring one file, do not add the trailing slash. For example:

rsync -a 'file.txt' /tmp/

In all cases, the destination directory can be specified with or without the trailing slash.

Show progress of Rsync

To show the progress of the transfer, use the (uppercase) -P option:

rsync -aP '/origin/' '/destination'

Note that options can be joined together without the additional - before each one. For example, to use archive, verbose and Progress together:

rsync -avP '/origin/' '/destination'

Exclude files using Rsync

To exclude a specific file, use the --exclude option:

rsync -avP --exclude 'cats.jpg' "/origin/" "/destination"

To exclude more than one file, add another --exclude option:

rsync -avP --exclude 'cats.jpg' --exclude 'dogs.jpg' "/origin/" "/destination"

To exclude all files of the same type, e.g. all .jpg files:

rsync -avP --exclude '*.jpg' "/origin/" "/destination"

Ignore existing files at destination with Rsync

Use the --ignore-existing option to ignore all existing files in the destination directory:

rsync -avP --ignore-existing "/origin/" "/destination"

Note that this option does not affect directories. This is a useful option for backups, for example, where a source folder contains some older files that have already been synchronised.

Delete at target

Use this option to delete files at the destination that do not exist at the origin.

rsync -avP --delete "/origin/" "/destination"

Note that --delete will proceed without asking for confirmation. It is recommended to perform a dry-run when using this option by specifying -n or --dry-run.

rsync -n -avP --delete "/origin/" "/destination"

#or

rsync --dry-run -avP --delete "/origin/" "/destination"