What happens to directories ommitted from a timeshift snapshot when restoring a snapshot?

I've been using timeshift for some time now and it works just fine. But as my storage started to fill up, the snapshots are getting larger. To prevent this there's one thing which I've been wondering and haven't tried yet because I'm afraid I might end up deleting my useful files.

Q: What will happen if for example I exclude ~/Downloads, ~/Pictures directories from a snapshot while creating it and later restore the same snapshot. What files would I have inside the directories excluded from the snapshot? Will these directories end up being empty?

Solution 1:

If you exclude folders in /home they will not be touched. What ever was there before you restore will still be there after.

While folders are included if you restore a snapshot you will roll back to what ever was there at the time the snapshot was taken. Any files you have added will be removed and any changes made to a file will be lost.

As others have said backup your home directory with another tool. TimeShift is designed to restore the OS files but has unanticipated effects on data and versions of data