Rsync copy directory contents but not directory itself

Question

I'm trying to synchronize two contents of folders with different name:

rsync -av ~/foo [email protected]:/var/www/bar

I'd like to copy the content of foo into bar at remote host, but not the directory foo itself. I've tried something like foo/*, but rsync doesn't support that.

rsync always creates

/var/www/bar/foo

NiloCK · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-07 13:05:23Z

338

rsync interprets a directory with no trailing slash as copy this directory, and a directory with a trailing slash as copy the contents of this directory.

Try rsync -av ~/foo/ [email protected]:/var/www/bar/

edited Jun 7, 2021 at 13:05

NiloCK

6211 gold badge13 silver badges34 bronze badges

answered Nov 30, 2013 at 13:58

Protostome

6,1095 gold badges32 silver badges45 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

7 Comments

zeekvfu Over a year ago

This behavior is odd, compared to mv or cp.

Luke Davis Over a year ago

Seems weird and inconsistent to make the trailing slash relevant for just this particular command. Wonder why it hasn't been changed.

Etienne Bruines Over a year ago

In case someone was also wondering why this works: it's the trailing / after the directory name.

shawn1874 Over a year ago

I also found it odd that the -a option was needed. If I don't use '-a' then I'll get an error skipping the directory and nothing happens. Reading the man pages, I wouldn't have concluded that. It seems like based on the docs that it should work without the -a option and the -v option is only for verbosity so that isn't relevant to the actual copy working. Weird. Thanks for the answer though.

Nick Bull Over a year ago

I'm just speculating, but it might be that in all honesty the way * works is pretty strange. * expands, so if you have many files in a directory, your command cp src/* dest expands into potentially a massive command. Again, all speculation, but maybe rsync moved away from it for this reason

|

Marcelo Guedes · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-14 20:37:41Z

104

It's simple,

rsync /var/www/ /home/var - copies the contents of /var/www/ but not the www folder itself.

rsync /var/www /home/var - copies the folder www along with all its contents.

edited Feb 14, 2022 at 20:37

answered May 23, 2018 at 19:08

Marcelo Guedes

1,5531 gold badge12 silver badges12 bronze badges

Comments

Olivier · Accepted Answer · 2016-12-28 15:28:19Z

36

Not related only to rsync, but when you are looking for examples on how to use a GNU/Linux command, you can use "eg" which displays explicit examples. eg is available here, with instructions on how to install it: https://github.com/srsudar/eg

The result for eg rsync is as follow

# rsync


copy the folder source_dir and its content into destination_dir

    rsync -av source_dir destination_dir


copy the contents of source_dir (trailing slash) into destination_dir

    rsync -av source_dir/ destination_dir

answered Dec 28, 2016 at 15:28

Olivier

2,2424 gold badges27 silver badges39 bronze badges

1 Comment

Sandra Over a year ago

just to note, without compression is currently (in 2024) the preferred method, unless you're transferring huge files over a very slow connection. see also eg unix.stackexchange.com/questions/188737/…

Dan612 · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-04 23:28:19Z

3

Navigate into the directory you would like to copy over, so:

cd ~/foo

Run this:

rsync -avz . [email protected]:/var/www/bar

answered Aug 4, 2018 at 23:28

Dan612

311 bronze badge

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Rsync copy directory contents but not directory itself

4 Answers 4

7 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

4 Answers 4

7 Comments

Comments

1 Comment

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related