Rsync -- exclude a directory but include specific subdirectories within that directory

Question

I have read this but for some reason it doesn't work for me.

I want to exclude /jails folder but include /jails/web/usr/local/www. (and all other folders in the root directory).

--include=jails/web/usr/local/www --exclude='jails/'

but it's not working. it completely excludes the jails folder.

Thank you.

Didn't the thread you mention recommend adding a trailing '/' to the end of the `--include=...` ? The example you have in your question lacks the trailing '/'. — Jordan Samuels, Aug 11 '14 at 21:05
Even with a trailing / it doesn't work. I tried first with a trailing / but it didn't work, so I removed it to see if it would work without it. — Pierre Trudel, Aug 12 '14 at 15:03

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 25 '18 at 13:43

I had the same problem and I managed to fix it by adding a trailing slash to the include and a trailing asterisk to the exclude, like so:

--include="jails/web/usr/local/www/" --exclude="jails/*"

Also apparently the order of the arguments matter, since putting --exclude first did not seem to work.

1 Answers1