UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

normally I

Code:

rsync -haPE source destination

What I want to do is take a old ~ directory from an external drive and have it ONLY update missing files NOT replace existing files. excluding ~/library

any help would be great.

What version of rsync are you using?

I am using Rsync 2.6.9 version 29

If you don't want to copy the source directory then

Code:

rsync [options] source/* destination

You can pare down your options. -P slows down the process. -h isn't needed nor are most of the options in -a. The option that you want is -u. Look at the man page --exclude=PATTERN and --exclude-from=FILE. You want to exclude any dot files such as .DS_Store, .localized, .Trash, etc......... You can use the -n option for a dry run. And finally Apple's hacked rsync will always copy the resource forks from the source with the -E option.