Backup your home directory with rsync and skip useless folders

You can easyly backup your home folder on an external harddrive with

rsync -a --exclude=.cache --progress /home/$USER /media/linuxbackup/home/$USER

I excluded the .cache folder cause I think I will never need it when I have to re-install from this backup.

I found this list of all folders that I could exclude in a normal backup here:
What files and directories can be excluded from a backup of the home directory?

I created a list of this answer that contains some coments in this form:

#These directories may be excluded:

.gvfs                           # contains mounted file systems?
.local/share/gvfs-metadata
.Private                        # contains the actual encrypted home directory
.dbus                           # session-specific
.cache
.Trash                          # do I need to say more?
.local/share/Trash
.cddb                           # cached info about audio CDs
.aptitude                       # cached packages lists

#Flash-specific:

.adobe                          # Cache for flash, maybe others?
.macromedia   # except for Flash persistence, there is no reason to keep this

#Files:

.xsession-errors            # contains errors from the current graphical session
.recently-used              # recently used files
.recently-used.xbel
.thumbnails

Here is the full list at gist

How can I add this list to my rsync command?

Solution 1:

The exclude list may only contain filenames, foldernames and lines starting with #. A comment behind the foldername is not allowed. I created a Git repository with all known files and folders that are superfluous:

Download this ignorelist to /var/tmp/ignorelist

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rubo77/rsync-homedir-excludes/master/rsync-homedir-excludes.txt -O /var/tmp/ignorelist

Then start the rsync with

rsync -aP --exclude-from=/var/tmp/ignorelist /home/$USER/ /media/$USER/linuxbackup/home/

Note:
In the ignorelist there is a commented section at the start with folders, that are probably not worth a backup either. Uncomment those, you don't need.

Solution 2:

From man rsync:

 --exclude-from=FILE     read exclude patterns from FILE
          This option is related to the --exclude option, but it specifies
          a FILE that contains exclude patterns  (one  per  line).   Blank
          lines  in  the  file  and  lines  starting  with  ’;’ or ’#’ are
          ignored.  If FILE is -, the list  will  be  read  from  standard
          input.