How can I exclude all subdirectories but include files of a directory in rsync?

Solution 1:

Try this command:

rsync -a -f"- */" -f"+ *" /home/user/ destination/

man rsync

-f, --filter=RULE           add a file-filtering RULE

The rule to include all files* and exclude the dirs */

Another approach to use the regular copy cp

cp /home/usr/* /destination

you can get rid of the errors about dirs using redirection

cp /home/usr/* /destination 2>/dev/null

This will only copies the files inside your home without the directories

Solution 2:

If you want to solve this with --include and --exclude parameters, you should change the order of them: first exclude what you want, then include everything. I do it usually with this command:

rsync -vazhP path/to/source path/to/dest --exclude '*/*/' --include '*'