How can I SCP entire directory but exclude a directory?

Question

I want to SCP an entire directory over to my new server, but exclude the thumbs/ directory inside /storage.

i want to scp over (and everything inside it, and all directories): /storage

but exclude: /storage/thumbs

thank you

JooMing · Answer 1 · 2010-12-02 16:42:43Z

up vote 7 down vote accepted

Use rsync: rsync -av --exclude thumbs /storage dest

Rsync uses secure copy.

answered Dec 2 '10 at 16:42

2

Actually, it pipes over SSH. But the net result is the same. – Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Dec 2 '10 at 16:43

How do you rsync to another server? – Andrew Fashion Dec 2 '10 at 16:49

Specify the destination in the form host:dir, such as newserver:/destdir. – James Sneeringer Dec 2 '10 at 17:44

+1: I was about to ask how to do scp recursively. I forgot about rsync. – David W. May 1 at 17:31

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Chopper3 · Answer 2 · 2010-12-02 16:44:23Z

up vote 0 down vote

Happy to be proven wrong but there's nothing I can see in the man page to suggest you can, presumably you're using '-r' right?

answered Dec 2 '10 at 16:44

Chopper3
58.3k549125

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Khaled · Answer 3 · 2010-12-02 16:44:53Z

up vote -1 down vote

You can simply move the excluded folder to another path and then scp the parent folder. At the end, re-move the folder to its original location.

answered Dec 2 '10 at 16:44

Khaled
14.7k1725

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3 Answers