cp command to exclude certain files from being copied

Question

Is there a way to use the cp command to copy a directory and exclude certain files/sub-directories within it?

Answer 1

Use rsync:

rsync -av --exclude='path1/to/exclude' --exclude='path2/to/exclude' source destination

Note that using source and source/ are different. A trailing slash means to copy the contents of the folder source into destination. Without the trailing slash, it means copy the folder source into destination.

Alternatively, if you have lots of directories (or files) to exclude, you can use --exclude-from=FILE, where FILE is the name of a file containing files or directories to exclude.

-av means archive mode and verbose.

--exclude may also contain wildcards, such as --exclude=*/.svn*.

Copied From: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2194500/749232

If you want to use cp itself:

find . -type f -not -iname '*/not-from-here/*' -exec cp '{}' '/dest/{}' ';'

This assumes the target directory structure is the same as the source's.

Copied From: https://stackoverflow.com/a/4586025/749232

Answer 2

Late into the game but here is a very different solution using plain Bash and cp: you can use a global file specification while having some files ignored.

Assume the directory contains the files:

$ ls *
listed1  listed2  listed3  listed4  unlisted1  unlisted2  unlisted3

Using the GLOBIGNORE variable:

$ export GLOBIGNORE='unlisted*'
$ ls *
listed1  listed2  listed3  listed4

Or with more specific exclusions:

$ export GLOBIGNORE='unlisted1:unlisted2'
$ ls *
listed1  listed2  listed3  listed4  unlisted3

Or using negative matches:

$ ls !(unlisted*)
listed1  listed2  listed3  listed4

This also supports several unmatched patterns:

$ ls !(unlisted1|unlisted2)
listed1  listed2  listed3  listed4  unlisted3

Answer 3

Quick Start

Run:

rsync -av --exclude='path1/in/source' --exclude='path2/in/source' [source]/ [destination]

---

Notes

• -avr will create a new directory named [destination].
• source and source/ create different results:
  • source/ — copy the contents of source into destination.
  • source — copy the folder source into destination.
• To exclude many files:
  • --exclude-from=FILE — FILE is the name of a file containing other files or directories to exclude.
• --exclude may also contain wildcards:
  • e.g. --exclude=*/.svn*

Modified from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2194500/749232

---

Example

Starting folder structure:

.
├── destination
└── source
    ├── fileToCopy.rtf
    └── fileToExclude.rtf

Run:

rsync -av --exclude='fileToExclude.rtf' source/ destination

Ending folder structure:

.
├── destination
│   └── fileToCopy.rtf
└── source
    ├── fileToCopy.rtf
    └── fileToExclude.rtf

Answer 4

You can use cp with the ! character.

For example, to exclude the file or files file.txt, test.jpg and the directory nodir, while copying all others from the source directory to the destination directory, you may run:

cp source/!(file.txt|test.jpg|nodir) destination

If you have, for example, a file structure as this one:

.
├── destination
└── source
    ├── file.rtf
    ├── file.txt
    ├── test.jpg
    ├── yes
    |    └── test.jpg 
    └── nodir
         └── other.jpg

The result after running the above command is:

.
└── source (not modified)
└── destination
    ├── file.rtf
    └── yes
         └── test.jpg 

Here is an article with information on rsync and cp with exclude: How to cp copy and exclude internal files or directories (equivalent to rsync –exclude)

Answer 5

Everyone seems to answering with "Use rsync", while I agree that is a very powerful tool its also overkill and presents some risks. The OP asked how to do it with cp and I found this worked combining some of the recommendations others made.

cp -rf !(backup) backup/

This was a simple experiment in copying all the files in a directory to a file called backup in the same directory without cp worrying about skipping a recursive call. Hope this helps.