How to Exclude Files and Directories with rsync

Applies to: rsync 3.5.0 (Debian 13, AlmaLinux 10.2) and rsync 3.2.7 (Ubuntu 24.04)

To make rsync skip files or folders, add --exclude with a pattern, once per pattern:

rsync -av --exclude='cache/' --exclude='*.log' /var/www/site/ /backup/site/

Three things decide whether an exclude works: the pattern is matched against paths relative to the folder you copy (never the full path on disk), a trailing / means "directories only", and a leading / means "only at the top of the transfer". For many patterns, put them in a file and use --exclude-from. Always test with a dry run (-n) first.

Quick reference

• --exclude='cache/': every folder named cache, at any depth, with its contents.
• --exclude='cache': every file or folder named cache.
• --exclude='/cache/': only the cache folder directly inside the source.
• --exclude='wp-content/cache/': only that nested folder.
• --exclude='cache/*': the contents of cache, but the empty folder is still created.
• --exclude='*.log': all files ending in .log.
• --exclude='.*': all hidden files and folders (.git, .env, .htaccess).
• --exclude='my notes.txt': a name with spaces, in quotes.

We tested every pattern below on this lab folder:

site/.env
site/.git/HEAD
site/assets/cache          (a file, not a folder)
site/cache/page.html
site/error.log
site/index.php
site/logs/access.log
site/logs/keep.log
site/node_modules/pkg/index.js
site/wp-content/cache/x.html
site/wp-content/uploads/2026/photo.jpg

Exclude a folder (and get the path right)

1. Write the pattern relative to the source. With site/ as the source, site/cache is /cache or cache in rsync terms. A full path does not match: --exclude='/tmp/lab/site/cache' excluded nothing in our test.
2. Add a trailing / if you only mean folders. In the lab, --exclude='cache' also skipped the file assets/cache; --exclude='cache/' copied it and skipped only the two folders.
3. Add a leading / if you only mean the top level. --exclude='/cache/' skipped site/cache but still copied wp-content/cache.
4. Watch the trailing slash on the source. Without it (rsync -a site /backup/) the folder name becomes part of every path, so /cache/ matched nothing and we needed /site/cache/ instead. See how to use rsync to copy and sync folders for what the trailing slash does.

A pattern with a slash in the middle, such as wp-content/cache, has to match whole path parts: content/cache did not exclude wp-content/cache. Use ** to match any number of folders, for example --exclude='wp-content/**/2026' skipped wp-content/uploads/2026.

Exclude several files and folders

• Repeat the option: --exclude='*.log' --exclude='node_modules/' --exclude='.git/'. Each --exclude takes exactly one pattern.
• In Bash you can shorten that with braces, --exclude={'*.log','node_modules','.git'}, because Bash expands it into three options. This does not work in sh on Debian and Ubuntu (dash), and cron runs jobs with sh unless the crontab sets SHELL: in our test under sh nothing was excluded. Use separate options or a file in scripts and cron jobs.
• Use an exclude file for longer lists. Blank lines and lines starting with # or ; are ignored:

  $ cat exclude.txt
  # build and cache files
  *.log
  cache/
  
  node_modules/
  .git/
  .env
  $ rsync -a --exclude-from=exclude.txt site/ /backup/site/

  Do not leave spaces at the end of a line: in our test a line cache/ (with a trailing space) excluded nothing.

Preview and debug with a dry run

1. Add -n (--dry-run) and -v to see what would be copied without copying anything. Lab example:

   $ rsync -avn --exclude-from=exclude.txt site/ dst/
   sending incremental file list
   created directory dst
   ./
   config.php
   index.php
   my notes.txt
   assets/
   assets/app.js
   assets/cache
   logs/
   wp-content/
   wp-content/uploads/
   wp-content/uploads/2026/
   wp-content/uploads/2026/photo.jpg
   ...
   total size is 12  speedup is 0.03 (DRY RUN)

2. Add --debug=FILTER to see which rule skipped each item:

   $ rsync -an --debug=FILTER --exclude='cache/' --exclude='*.log' site/ dst/
   [sender] hiding directory cache because of pattern cache/
   [sender] hiding file error.log because of pattern *.log
   [sender] hiding file logs/keep.log because of pattern *.log
   [sender] hiding file logs/access.log because of pattern *.log
   [sender] hiding directory wp-content/cache because of pattern cache/

   For rules read from --exclude-from, rsync 3.5.0 printed "because of pattern <rule from a file read earlier>" instead of the pattern.
3. Remove -n and run the real copy.

Include some files and exclude the rest

rsync checks the rules in order and the first rule that matches wins, so put --include before the --exclude it should override.

• Copy only PHP files and keep the folder structure:

  rsync -am --include='*/' --include='*.php' --exclude='*' site/ /backup/php/

  --include='*/' lets rsync walk into every folder, and -m (--prune-empty-dirs) drops the folders that end up empty. Without -m our copy had ten empty folders; with the order reversed (--exclude='*' first) it copied nothing at all.
• Skip a folder's contents but keep one file:

  rsync -a --include='logs/keep.log' --exclude='logs/*' site/ /backup/site/

  This copied only logs/keep.log. With --exclude='logs/' instead, nothing in logs was copied, because rsync never looks inside an excluded folder.

Excludes and --delete

With --delete, rsync removes files from the destination that are gone from the source, but it does not delete excluded files there: in our test dst/cache survived --delete --exclude='cache/'. Add --delete-excluded if the destination should lose them too. Our run then printed:

deleting cache/page.html
deleting cache/
deleting index.php
./
deleting wp-content/cache/x.html
deleting wp-content/cache/

Run any --delete command with -n first.

Excludes over SSH, .gitignore and -C

• Remote copies use exactly the same patterns, still relative to the source folder: rsync -av --exclude='cache/' /var/www/site/ user@server:/backup/site/. For a custom SSH port, see rsync with a non-standard SSH port.
• --filter=':- .gitignore' reads exclude patterns from .gitignore files in each folder. It skipped node_modules and the log files in our test. rsync reads the file with its own rules, not Git's, so keep it to simple patterns.
• -C (--cvs-exclude) skips .git/, .svn/ and similar folders, but its built-in list also contains core, *.so, *.exe, *.bak and *.old, according to the rsync manual. Do not use it for full server or website backups.

"skipping directory" message

If rsync prints skipping directory site and copies nothing, you forgot -r or -a. Without one of them rsync does not copy folders. It still exits with code 0 in our test, so a script will not notice. Add -a (archive mode, which includes -r).

Related articles: how to use rsync to copy and sync files and directories, how to rsync only new or changed files, how to copy a folder recursively with scp and exclude files, 13 rsync command examples.