rclone copy

Copy files from source to dest, skipping identical files.

Synopsis

Copy the source to the destination. Does not transfer files that are identical on source and destination, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. Doesn’t delete files from the destination. If you want to also delete files from destination, to make it match source, use the sync command instead.

Note that it is always the contents of the directory that is synced, not the directory itself. So when source:path is a directory, it’s the contents of source:path that are copied, not the directory name and contents.

To copy single files, use the copyto command instead.

If dest:path doesn’t exist, it is created and the source:path contents go there.

For example

  1. rclone copy source:sourcepath dest:destpath

Let’s say there are two files in sourcepath

  1. sourcepath/one.txt
  2. sourcepath/two.txt

This copies them to

  1. destpath/one.txt
  2. destpath/two.txt

Not to

  1. destpath/sourcepath/one.txt
  2. destpath/sourcepath/two.txt

If you are familiar with rsync, rclone always works as if you had written a trailing / - meaning “copy the contents of this directory”. This applies to all commands and whether you are talking about the source or destination.

See the --no-traverse option for controlling whether rclone lists the destination directory or not. Supplying this option when copying a small number of files into a large destination can speed transfers up greatly.

For example, if you have many files in /path/to/src but only a few of them change every day, you can copy all the files which have changed recently very efficiently like this:

  1. rclone copy --max-age 24h --no-traverse /path/to/src remote:

Rclone will sync the modification times of files and directories if the backend supports it. If metadata syncing is required then use the --metadata flag.

Note that the modification time and metadata for the root directory will not be synced. See https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/7652 for more info.

Note: Use the -P/--progress flag to view real-time transfer statistics.

Note: Use the --dry-run or the --interactive/-i flag to test without copying anything.

  1. rclone copy source:path dest:path [flags]

Options

  1.       --create-empty-src-dirs   Create empty source dirs on destination after copy
  2.   -h, --help                    help for copy

Options shared with other commands are described next. See the global flags page for global options not listed here.

Copy Options

Flags for anything which can copy a file

  1.       --check-first                                 Do all the checks before starting transfers
  2.   -c, --checksum                                    Check for changes with size & checksum (if available, or fallback to size only)
  3.       --compare-dest stringArray                    Include additional server-side paths during comparison
  4.       --copy-dest stringArray                       Implies --compare-dest but also copies files from paths into destination
  5.       --cutoff-mode HARD|SOFT|CAUTIOUS              Mode to stop transfers when reaching the max transfer limit HARD|SOFT|CAUTIOUS (default HARD)
  6.       --ignore-case-sync                            Ignore case when synchronizing
  7.       --ignore-checksum                             Skip post copy check of checksums
  8.       --ignore-existing                             Skip all files that exist on destination
  9.       --ignore-size                                 Ignore size when skipping use modtime or checksum
  10.   -I, --ignore-times                                Don't skip items that match size and time - transfer all unconditionally
  11.       --immutable                                   Do not modify files, fail if existing files have been modified
  12.       --inplace                                     Download directly to destination file instead of atomic download to temp/rename
  13.   -l, --links                                       Translate symlinks to/from regular files with a '.rclonelink' extension
  14.       --max-backlog int                             Maximum number of objects in sync or check backlog (default 10000)
  15.       --max-duration Duration                       Maximum duration rclone will transfer data for (default 0s)
  16.       --max-transfer SizeSuffix                     Maximum size of data to transfer (default off)
  17.   -M, --metadata                                    If set, preserve metadata when copying objects
  18.       --modify-window Duration                      Max time diff to be considered the same (default 1ns)
  19.       --multi-thread-chunk-size SizeSuffix          Chunk size for multi-thread downloads / uploads, if not set by filesystem (default 64Mi)
  20.       --multi-thread-cutoff SizeSuffix              Use multi-thread downloads for files above this size (default 256Mi)
  21.       --multi-thread-streams int                    Number of streams to use for multi-thread downloads (default 4)
  22.       --multi-thread-write-buffer-size SizeSuffix   In memory buffer size for writing when in multi-thread mode (default 128Ki)
  23.       --no-check-dest                               Don't check the destination, copy regardless
  24.       --no-traverse                                 Don't traverse destination file system on copy
  25.       --no-update-dir-modtime                       Don't update directory modification times
  26.       --no-update-modtime                           Don't update destination modtime if files identical
  27.       --order-by string                             Instructions on how to order the transfers, e.g. 'size,descending'
  28.       --partial-suffix string                       Add partial-suffix to temporary file name when --inplace is not used (default ".partial")
  29.       --refresh-times                               Refresh the modtime of remote files
  30.       --server-side-across-configs                  Allow server-side operations (e.g. copy) to work across different configs
  31.       --size-only                                   Skip based on size only, not modtime or checksum
  32.       --streaming-upload-cutoff SizeSuffix          Cutoff for switching to chunked upload if file size is unknown, upload starts after reaching cutoff or when file ends (default 100Ki)
  33.   -u, --update                                      Skip files that are newer on the destination

Important Options

Important flags useful for most commands

  1.   -n, --dry-run         Do a trial run with no permanent changes
  2.   -i, --interactive     Enable interactive mode
  3.   -v, --verbose count   Print lots more stuff (repeat for more)

Filter Options

Flags for filtering directory listings

  1.       --delete-excluded                     Delete files on dest excluded from sync
  2.       --exclude stringArray                 Exclude files matching pattern
  3.       --exclude-from stringArray            Read file exclude patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
  4.       --exclude-if-present stringArray      Exclude directories if filename is present
  5.       --files-from stringArray              Read list of source-file names from file (use - to read from stdin)
  6.       --files-from-raw stringArray          Read list of source-file names from file without any processing of lines (use - to read from stdin)
  7.   -f, --filter stringArray                  Add a file filtering rule
  8.       --filter-from stringArray             Read file filtering patterns from a file (use - to read from stdin)
  9.       --ignore-case                         Ignore case in filters (case insensitive)
  10.       --include stringArray                 Include files matching pattern
  11.       --include-from stringArray            Read file include patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
  12.       --max-age Duration                    Only transfer files younger than this in s or suffix ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|y (default off)
  13.       --max-depth int                       If set limits the recursion depth to this (default -1)
  14.       --max-size SizeSuffix                 Only transfer files smaller than this in KiB or suffix B|K|M|G|T|P (default off)
  15.       --metadata-exclude stringArray        Exclude metadatas matching pattern
  16.       --metadata-exclude-from stringArray   Read metadata exclude patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
  17.       --metadata-filter stringArray         Add a metadata filtering rule
  18.       --metadata-filter-from stringArray    Read metadata filtering patterns from a file (use - to read from stdin)
  19.       --metadata-include stringArray        Include metadatas matching pattern
  20.       --metadata-include-from stringArray   Read metadata include patterns from file (use - to read from stdin)
  21.       --min-age Duration                    Only transfer files older than this in s or suffix ms|s|m|h|d|w|M|y (default off)
  22.       --min-size SizeSuffix                 Only transfer files bigger than this in KiB or suffix B|K|M|G|T|P (default off)

Listing Options

Flags for listing directories

  1.       --default-time Time   Time to show if modtime is unknown for files and directories (default 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z)
  2.       --fast-list           Use recursive list if available; uses more memory but fewer transactions

See Also

  • rclone - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.