Anne Wilson wrote: > Hmm - I'm getting something badly wrong here: > > [anne@david ~]$ rsync -auvz /home/anne/ ssh:anne@borg:/home/anne/ > --exclude .* > ~/Desktop/rsynctest.txt Jeff Vian told her: > The .* includes all hidden (.xxxx) files, the .. (parent) directory, and > the . (current) directory. It may not have been what you wanted. Anne replied: > Of course - I had overlooked the . and .. directories. That explains what > happened. So, how can I rsync all my home folder, excluding the hidden files > and, say Desktop and Download directories? I'd realy appreciate an example. I should have thought --exclude .[a-z]* or --exclude .??* would have got rid of most hidden files and directories. A quick check on my home directory suggests both would do the job [1] I'd also suspect that for the test, you need to --exclude ~/Desktop : things could get odd if you repeatedly try to syncronise all of your home directory to somewhere underneath it. Hope this helps, James. [1] Assuming that you haven't changed LANG or LC_COLLATE to C, in which case .[a-z]* won't get .DCOP*. -- E-mail address: james | [Bradford Cathedral] took 194 years to complete. A @westexe.demon.co.uk | construction period of nearly two centuries may seem | ridiculous to us, but of course builders were a lot | quicker in those days. -- "ISIHAC", BBC Radio 4