How to rsync only a specific list of files?

Question

I've about 50 or so files in various sub-directories that I'd like to push to a remote server. I figured rsync would be able to do this for me using the --include-from option. Without the --exclude="*" option, all the files in the directory are being synced, with the option, no files are.

rsync -avP -e ssh --include-from=deploy/rsync_include.txt --exclude=* ./ root@0.0.0.0:/var/www/ --dry-run

I'm running it as dry initially and 0.0.0.0 is obviously replaced by the IP of the remote server. The contents of rsync_include.txt is a new line separated list of relative paths to the files I want to upload.

Is there a better way of doing this that is escaping me on a Monday morning?

score 310 · Answer 1 · edited Sep 16 '16 at 10:40

There is a flag --files-from that does exactly what you want. From man rsync:

--files-from=FILE
Using this option allows you to specify the exact list of files to transfer (as read from the specified FILE or - for standard input). It also tweaks the default behavior of rsync to make transferring just the specified files and directories easier:

The --relative (-R) option is implied, which preserves the path information that is specified for each item in the file (use --no-relative or --no-R if you want to turn that off).

The --dirs (-d) option is implied, which will create directories specified in the list on the destination rather than noisily skipping them (use --no-dirs or --no-d if you want to turn that off).

The --archive (-a) option’s behavior does not imply --recursive (-r), so specify it explicitly, if you want it.

These side-effects change the default state of rsync, so the position of the --files-from option on the command-line has no bearing on how other options are parsed (e.g. -a works the same before or after --files-from, as does --no-R and all other options).

The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source dir -- any leading slashes are removed and no ".." references are allowed to go higher than the source dir. For example, take this command:
rsync -a --files-from=/tmp/foo /usr remote:/backup
If /tmp/foo contains the string "bin" (or even "/bin"), the /usr/bin directory will be created as /backup/bin on the remote host. If it contains "bin/" (note the trailing slash), the immediate contents of the directory would also be sent (without needing to be explicitly mentioned in the file -- this began in version 2.6.4). In both cases, if the -r option was enabled, that dir’s entire hierarchy would also be transferred (keep in mind that -r needs to be specified explicitly with --files-from, since it is not implied by -a). Also note that the effect of the (enabled by default) --relative option is to duplicate only the path info that is read from the file -- it does not force the duplication of the source-spec path (/usr in this case).

In addition, the --files-from file can be read from the remote host instead of the local host if you specify a "host:" in front of the file (the host must match one end of the transfer). As a short-cut, you can specify just a prefix of ":" to mean "use the remote end of the transfer". For example:
rsync -a --files-from=:/path/file-list src:/ /tmp/copy
This would copy all the files specified in the /path/file-list file that was located on the remote "src" host.

If the --iconv and --protect-args options are specified and the --files-from filenames are being sent from one host to another, the filenames will be translated from the sending host’s charset to the receiving host’s charset.

NOTE: sorting the list of files in the --files-from input helps rsync to be more efficient, as it will avoid re-visiting the path elements that are shared between adjacent entries. If the input is not sorted, some path elements (implied directories) may end up being scanned multiple times, and rsync will eventually unduplicate them after they get turned into file-list elements.

Note that you still have to specify the directory where the files listed are located, for instance: `rsync -av --files-from=file-list . target/` for copying files from the current dir. — Nicolas Mattia, Feb 11 '16 at 11:06
Yes, and to reiterate: `The filenames that are read from the FILE are all relative to the source dir`. — atp, Feb 12 '16 at 02:25
if the files-from file has anything starting with `..` rsync appears to ignore the `..` giving me an error like `rsync: link_stat "/home/michael/test/subdir/test.txt" failed: No such file or directory` (in this case running from the "test" dir and trying to specify "../subdir/test.txt" which does exist. — Michael, Nov 02 '16 at 00:09
Can the `--files-from` argument be combined with an explicit list of includes and excludes, and will the files from the list added with `--files-from` override existing exclude rules, such that they are included if they appear in the file? — highsciguy, Mar 14 '18 at 08:29
-a, --archive archive mode; equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X) archive indeed implies recursive — sgohl, Jul 04 '22 at 15:06
@sgohl archive implies recursive _unless_ archive is used in combination with `--files-from`. From the docs: `--archive, -a [..] The only exception to the above equivalence is when --files-from is specified, in which case -r is not implied.` (rsync 3.2.7) — amphied, May 23 '23 at 22:33

score 18 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 02 '18 at 08:33

For the record, none of the answers above helped except for one. To summarize, you can do the backup operation using --files-from= by using either:

 rsync -aSvuc `cat rsync-src-files` /mnt/d/rsync_test/

OR

 rsync -aSvuc --recursive --files-from=rsync-src-files . /mnt/d/rsync_test/

The former command is self explanatory, beside the content of the file rsync-src-files which I will elaborate down below. Now, if you want to use the latter version, you need to keep in mind the following four remarks:

Notice one needs to specify both --files-from and the source directory
One needs to explicitely specify --recursive.
The file rsync-src-files is a user created file and it was placed within the src directory for this test
The rsyn-src-files contain the files and folders to copy and they are taken relative to the source directory. IMPORTANT: Make sure there is not trailing spaces or blank lines in the file. In the example below, there are only two lines, not three (Figure it out by chance). Content of rsynch-src-files is:

folderName1
folderName2

score 14 · Answer 3 · edited Jan 22 '16 at 11:31

14

--files-from= parameter needs trailing slash if you want to keep the absolute path intact. So your command would become something like below:

rsync -av --files-from=/path/to/file / /tmp/

This could be done like there are a large number of files and you want to copy all files to x path. So you would find the files and throw output to a file like below:

find /var/* -name *.log > file

edited Jan 22 '16 at 11:31

Brian Tompsett - 汤莱恩

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answered Jan 22 '16 at 11:01

Waqas Khan

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Victoria Stuart · Answer 4 · 2022-07-15T16:36:18.247

$ date
  Wed 24 Apr 2019 09:54:53 AM PDT
$ rsync --version
  rsync  version 3.1.3  protocol version 31
  ...

Syntax: rsync <args> <file_and_or_folder_list> <source_dir> <destination_dir/>

Folder names - WITH a trailing /; e.g. Cancer - Evolution/ - are provided in a file (e.g. my_folder_list):

# comment: /mnt/Vancouver/my_folder_list
# comment: 2019-04-24
some_file
another_file
Cancer/
Cancer - Evolution/
Cancer - Genomic Variants/
Cancer - Metastasis (EMT Transition ...)/
Cancer Pathways, Networks/
Catabolism - Autophagy; Phagosomes; Mitophagy/

so those are the "source" (files and/or) folders, to be rsync'd.

Note that if you don't include the trailing / shown above, rsync creates the target folders, but they are empty.

Those folder names provided in the <file_and_or_folder_list> are appended to the rest of their path: <src_dir> = /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS (here, on a different partition), thus providing the complete folder path to rsync; e.g.: ... /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS/Cancer - Evolution/ ...

[ I'm editing this answer some time later (2022-07), and I can't recall if the path provided to <src_dir> is /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS or /home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS/ - providing the correct concatenated path. I believe it's the former; if it doesn't work, use the latter. ]

Note that you also need to use --files-from= ..., NOT --include-from= ...

Again the rsync syntax is:

rsync <args> <file_and_or_folder_list> <source_dir> <destination_dir/>

so,

rsync -aqP --delete --files-from=/mnt/Vancouver/my_folder_list "/home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS" $DEST_DIR/

where

<args> is -aqP --delete
<file_and_or_folder_list> is --files-from=/mnt/Vancouver/my_folder_list
<source_dir> is "/home/victoria/RESEARCH - NEWS"
<destination_dir/> is $DEST_DIR/ (note the trailing / added to the variable name)

In my BASH script, for coding flexibility I defined variable $DEST_DIR in two parts as follows.

BASEDIR="/mnt/Vancouver"
DEST_DIR=$BASEDIR/data
echo $DEST_DIR                 ## /mnt/Vancouver/data

## To clarify, here is $DEST_DIR with / appended to the variable name:
echo $DEST_DIR/                ## /mnt/Vancouver/data/
echo $DEST_DIR/apple/banana    ## /mnt/Vancouver/data/apple/banana

However, you can more simply specify the destination path:

via a BASH variable: $DEST_DIR=/mnt/Vancouver/data
- note that in the rsync expression above, / is appended to $DEST_DIR (i.e. $DEST_DIR/ is actually $DEST_DIR + /), giving the destination directory path /mnt/Vancouver/data/
explicitly state the destination path: /mnt/Vancouver/data/

rsync options used: ## man rsync or rsync -h

 -a  :   archive: equals -rlptgoD (no -H,-A,-X)
    -r  :   recursive
    -l  :   copy symlinks as symlinks
    -p  :   preserve permissions
    -t  :   preserve modification times
    -g  :   preserve group
    -o  :   preserve owner (super-user only)
    -D  :   same as --devices --specials

  -P  :  same as --partial --progress

  -q  :   quiet (https://serverfault.com/questions/547106/run-totally-silent-rsync)

  --delete
    This  tells  rsync to delete extraneous files from the RECEIVING SIDE (ones
    that AREN’T ON THE SENDING SIDE), but only for the directories that are
    being synchronized.  You must have asked rsync to send the whole directory
    (e.g.  "dir" or "dir/") without using a wildcard for the directory’s contents
    (e.g. "dir/*") since the wildcard is expanded by the shell and rsync thus
    gets a request to transfer individual files, not the files’ parent directory.
    Files  that  are  excluded  from  the transfer are also excluded from being
    deleted unless you use the --delete-excluded option or mark the rules as
    only matching on the sending side (see the include/exclude modifiers in the
    FILTER RULES section).  ...

Thank you, this is the most helpful and explanatory answer here — p0358, Jul 15 '22 at 11:42

Wes Hardaker · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-02T02:22:56.730

4

Edit: atp's answer below is better. Please use that one!

You might have an easier time, if you're looking for a specific list of files, putting them directly on the command line instead:

# rsync -avP -e ssh `cat deploy/rsync_include.txt` root@0.0.0.0:/var/www/

This is assuming, however, that your list isn't so long that the command line length will be a problem and that the rsync_include.txt file contains just real paths (i.e. no comments, and no regexps).

edited Jan 02 '21 at 02:22

answered May 20 '13 at 12:34

Wes Hardaker

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Unfortunately, this doesn't work with a large list or with files with spaces in the name. – Wes Modes Mar 23 '17 at 01:11
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[Argument list too long] – Dankó Dávid Nov 08 '17 at 15:04
By default, xargs appends arguments from stdin to the end of the command line. That doesn't work as rsync needs the last argument to be the destination. Some versions of xargs can optionally insert arguments into the middle of the command line instead. That should work as long as you don't mind that it may run rsync more than once when the list of files is long. In any case, the `rsync --files-from` is probably an easier and more reliable solution :) – Lassi Nov 06 '19 at 14:10
Wes Hardaker: Does your **Edit** & reference to "Josip Rodin's answer" actually refer to [@atp answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/30176688/5395338) that Rodin edited? – Mar 02 '20 at 08:50
This answer should not be the top answer, as when I (and maybe more people) create a script to replicate data, I do not like to have multiple files to care for, as it makes maintenance difficult in the long run. It's best to use --files-from for onsies or twosies and use INCLUDE and EXCLUDE for larger batches. – ma11achy Dec 16 '20 at 17:51

score 4 · Answer 6 · edited Jul 30 '20 at 16:26

4

None of these answers worked for me, when all I had was a list of directories. Then I stumbled upon the solution! You have to add -r to --files-from because -a will not be recursive in this scenario (who knew?!).

rsync -aruRP --files-from=directory.list . ../new/location

edited Jul 30 '20 at 16:26

ChrisGPT was on strike

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answered May 01 '20 at 16:59

Theodore R. Smith

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If you list “dir” in the file then you need to specify -r/—recursive; if you list “dir/“ you do not. – lbutlr Aug 05 '20 at 15:38

score 3 · Answer 7 · answered Aug 14 '19 at 23:12

I got similar task: to rsync all files modified after given date, but excluding some directories. It was difficult to build one liner all-in-one style, so I dived problem into smaller pieces. Final solution:

find  ~/sourceDIR -type f -newermt "DD MMM YYYY HH:MM:SS" | egrep -v "/\..|Downloads|FOO" > FileList.txt
rsync -v --files-from=FileList.txt ~/sourceDIR /Destination

First I use find -L ~/sourceDIR -type f -newermt "DD MMM YYYY HH:MM:SS". I tried to add regex to find line to exclude name patterns, however my flavor of Linux (Mint) seams not to understand negate regex in find. Tried number of regex flavors - non work as desired. So I end up with egrep -v - option that excludes pattern easy way. My rsync is not copying directories like /.cache or /.config plus some other I explicitly named.

I believe you could use process substitution to turn this into a `bash` one-liner: `rsync -v --files-from=<(find ~/sourceDIR -type f -newermt "DD MMM YYYY HH:MM:SS" | grep -Ev "/\..|Downloads|FOO") ~/sourceDIR /Destination` — phk, Aug 20 '19 at 07:13

score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 10 '19 at 10:00

This answer is not the direct answer for the question. But it should help you figure out which solution fits best for your problem.

When analysing the problem you should activate the debug option -vv

Then rsync will output which files are included or excluded by which pattern:

building file list ... 
[sender] hiding file FILE1 because of pattern FILE1*
[sender] showing file FILE2 because of pattern *

How to rsync only a specific list of files?

8 Answers8

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