Basics of rclone
Using Filters in rclone
Using filtering options and patterns, you can configure rclone to skip certain files and directories. Filtering rules in rclone work with most commands, including copy
and sync
. A filtering rule in rclone consists of two parts: an exclude or include subcommand and a filtering pattern. Rclone features four filtering subcommands: --exclude
, --exclude-from
, --include
, and --include-from
. The first two commands can be used to exclude files, and the other two let you limit the current operation only to the specified files. The --exclude
subcommand allows you to specify the filtering pattern in-line, for example:
rclone --exclude *.log sync /path/to/source remote:destination
This command syncs everything except the files with the .log
extension. Instead of specifying a filtering rule on the fly, you can save a list of filtering patterns in a text file and use the --exclude-from
subcommand with it:
rclone --exclude-from=filters.txt copy /path/to/source remote:destination
The --include
command can come in useful when you need to limit rclone to a specific subset of files. For example, if you want to sync TIFF and JPEG files in a directory and skip the rest, the following filtering rule does the job:
rclone --include *.{tif,jpg} copy /path/to/source remote:destination
Similar to --exclude-from
, the --include-from
command can read filtering patterns from a text file.
Using the exclude
and include
subcommands, you can create filtering rules that either skip or include matching files. But, what if you need to create a set of filters that combines both? Then the --filter-from
subcommand is what you need. This subcommand reads a text file containing include and exclude filtering rules and applies them to the current rclone operation:
rclone --filter-from=filters.txt sync /path/to/source remote:destination
Each line in the specified text files contains a filtering rule that starts with either the + (include) or - (exclude) prefix, for example:
+ *.jpeg + *.tiff - *.MP4 - *.xmp
As you may have noticed, the filtering patterns in rclone are based on wildcards. Although they are not as powerful as regular expressions, wildcards are significantly easier to master. And, if you are used to using wildcards when working from the command line, you won't have problems composing filtering rules for rclone.
Final Word
The rclone utility has a lot going for it. It's easy to deploy, it supports many popular cloud storage services, and it's powerful enough for most backup needs. So, if you are planning to introduce a cloud backup system to your workflow, you might want to give rclone a closer look.
Infos
- rclone: http://rclone.org
- hubiC: https://hubic.com/en/
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