How to Use rsync to Copy Files and Folders in Linux

Copy directories and files using the rsync file-transfer program for Linux. The command includes additional options beyond customary copy functions.

One of the more useful features of rsync is that it excludes files in a systematic way. As such, it backs up files intended for archiving while avoiding everything else.

Using the rsync command properly requires that you follow the correct syntax:

rsync [OPTION]... [SRC]... [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... [SRC]... [USER@]HOST:DEST
rsync [OPTION]... [SRC]... [USER@]HOST::DEST
rsync [OPTION]... [SRC]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/DEST
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST:SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... [USER@]HOST::SRC [DEST]
rsync [OPTION]... rsync://[USER@]HOST[:PORT]/SRC [DEST]

Some commonly used switches include:

• -v, --verbose: Increase verbosity (provides more details about what the command is doing).
  • --info=FLAGS: Provides detailed informational messages.
  • --debug=FLAGS: Provides detailed debug messages.
  • --msgs2stderr: Special output handling for debugging.
• -q, --quiet: Suppresses non-error messages.
  • --no-motd: Suppresses daemon-mode message of the day (MOTD).
• -c, --checksum: Skips files based on checksum, not mod-time and size.
•  -r, --recursive: Browse into sub-directories for additional files.
• -b, --backup: Make backups.
  • --backup-dir=DIR: Make backups into a matching directory hierarchy.
  • --suffix=SUFFIX: Adds suffix text to the end of backed up files.
• -d, --dirs: Transfer only directories without browsing inside of them.

The following are a few examples of how to use rsync with some of those options.

rsync /home/jon/Desktop/data/*.jpg /home/jon/Desktop/backupdata/

In this above example, all of the JPG files from the /data/ folder copy to the /backupdata/ folder on the user Jon's Desktop folder.

rsync --max-size=2k /home/jon/Desktop/data/ /home/jon/Desktop/backupdata/

This rsync example is a bit more complicated since it's set up to not copy files if they're larger than 2,048 KB. That is, to only copy files smaller than the stated size.

Use k, m, or g to indicate kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes in the 1,024 multiplier, or kb, mb, or gb to use 1,000.

rsync --min-size=30mb /home/jon/Desktop/data/ /home/jon/Desktop/backupdata/

The same can be done for --min-size, as you see above. In this example, rsync only copies files that are 30 MB or larger.

rsync --min-size=30mb --progress /home/jon/Desktop/data/ /home/jon/Desktop/backupdata/

Use the --progress option to watch the process work up to 100 percent—handy when you're copying very large files.

rsync --recursive /home/jon/Desktop/data /home/jon/Desktop/data2

The --recursive option provides an easy way to copy an entire folder to a different location, like to the /data2/ folder in the example above.

This command copies the entire folder and all of its contents to the new location.

rsync -r --exclude="*.deb" /home/jon/Desktop/data /home/jon/Desktop/backupdata​

Copy a whole folder but exclude files of a certain file extension, such as DEB files, in this example above. The whole /data/ folder is copied to /backupdata/ as in the previous example, but all DEB files are excluded from the copy.