Syncing multiple sub-directories to one directory

[Wayne Davison]

On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 7:38 AM Rob Campbell wrote:

> I would like to sync many subdirectories into one directory with no
> subdirectories. I've tried
>
> rsync -rv --progress --include '*.jp*g' --include '*.png' --include
> '*.dng' --include '*.raw' --include '*.nef' --include 'Duo' --include
> 'DCIM' --include 'WhatsApp' --exclude '*' /my/phone/root/dir/
> /my/backup/directory/for/images/
>

You didn't specify what isn't working as you expect. That command works
fine for the 3 listed dir names as long as you either don't have matching
files inside /my/phone/root/dir (or as long as it's ok to also copy those
files) and as long as there aren't subdirs or files named the same as the 3
top dirs you included. The latter can be fixed by anchoring your dir names
and making them only match a dir (e.g. --include '/Duo/').  If you want to
have the copy avoid files in the top dir you can either change all the
file-based includes to have a "*/" prefix (such as "--include '*/*.png'
...") or you can change the dir includes into args and exclude '*/*'
instead of "*".  The last option would look like this (I also tossed in -i):

rsync -riv --progress --include '*.jp*g' --include '*.png' --include
'*.dng' --include '*.raw' --include '*.nef' --exclude '*/*'
/my/phone/root/dir/{Duo,DCIM,WhatsApp} /my/backup/directory/for/images/

That assumes you've got bash to do the brace expansion, but you could
change that into 3 arg paths if you need to. You may also want to add --del
if you want rsync to delete inside the 3 listed dirs.

I'm not sure why you listed an extra command with "NewDir" when it's not
mentioned in the first command.  If that is an indication that you really
want to copy all dirs under root/dir (not just the 3 named dirs in the
first command) then you could use an include of "/*/" to match any dir in
the root of the transfer, like this:

rsync -riv --progress --include '*.jp*g' --include '*.png' --include
'*.dng' --include '*.raw' --include '*.nef' --include '/*/' --exclude '*'
/my/phone/root/dir/ /my/backup/directory/for/images/

One last suggestion, I like to make the args shorter by using -f (filter)
commands, so an include example is -f '+ *.png' and an exclude example is
-f '- /*/' (those are identical to the equivalent include/exclude args, so
that's just personal preference).

..wayne..
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