Rsync copy directory contents but not directory itself

Question

I'm trying to synchronize two contents of folders with different name:

rsync -av ~/foo user@remote.com:/var/www/bar

I'd like to copy the content of foo into bar at remote host, but not the directory foo itself. I've tried something like foo/*, but rsync doesn't support that.

rsync always creates

/var/www/bar/foo

score 291 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 07 '21 at 13:05

291

rsync interprets a directory with no trailing slash as copy this directory, and a directory with a trailing slash as copy the contents of this directory.

Try rsync -av ~/foo/ user@remote.com:/var/www/bar/

edited Jun 07 '21 at 13:05

NiloCK

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answered Nov 30 '13 at 13:58

Protostome

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This behavior is odd, compared to `mv` or `cp`. – zeekvfu Dec 05 '13 at 10:55
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Seems weird and inconsistent to make the trailing slash relevant for just this particular command. Wonder why it hasn't been changed. – Luke Davis Jan 12 '17 at 22:29
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In case someone was also wondering *why* this works: it's the trailing `/` after the directory name. – Etienne Bruines Jan 14 '17 at 18:24
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I also found it odd that the -a option was needed. If I don't use '-a' then I'll get an error skipping the directory and nothing happens. Reading the man pages, I wouldn't have concluded that. It seems like based on the docs that it should work without the -a option and the -v option is only for verbosity so that isn't relevant to the actual copy working. Weird. Thanks for the answer though. – shawn1874 Aug 14 '20 at 20:15
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I'm just speculating, but it might be that in all honesty the way `*` works is pretty strange. `*` expands, so if you have many files in a directory, your command `cp src/* dest` expands into potentially a massive command. Again, all speculation, but maybe `rsync` moved away from it for this reason – Nick Bull Sep 10 '21 at 22:26
This doesn't work on my machine for some reason. It still attempts to create the directory foo and as such I get a permission error. – USB_S0lderer Dec 06 '21 at 10:12
`-a` is shorthand for `-rlptgoD`; it's possible that you need the `-r`/`--recursive` to copy directories at all. And `*` is usually a shell-side thing, not rsync; the filenames get expanded before they even hit rsync (unless you escape it with something like `rsync src/\* dest`. – chronospoon May 10 '22 at 23:42

Marcelo Guedes · Answer 2 · 2022-02-14T20:37:41.780

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It's simple,

rsync /var/www/ /home/var - copies the contents of /var/www/ but not the www folder itself.

rsync /var/www /home/var - copies the folder www along with all its contents.

edited Feb 14 '22 at 20:37

answered May 23 '18 at 19:08

Marcelo Guedes

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score 34 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 28 '16 at 15:28

Not related only to rsync, but when you are looking for examples on how to use a GNU/Linux command, you can use "eg" which displays explicit examples. eg is available here, with instructions on how to install it: https://github.com/srsudar/eg

The result for eg rsync is as follow

# rsync


copy the folder source_dir and its content into destination_dir

    rsync -av source_dir destination_dir


copy the contents of source_dir (trailing slash) into destination_dir

    rsync -av source_dir/ destination_dir

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 04 '18 at 23:28

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Navigate into the directory you would like to copy over, so:

cd ~/foo

Run this:

rsync -avz . user@remote.com:/var/www/bar

answered Aug 04 '18 at 23:28

Dan612

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Rsync copy directory contents but not directory itself

4 Answers4

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