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I have two backup directories (dir1 and 2) on two different (local) HDDs and I want to create one of them. How can I really sync their contents so that both directories will have the same contents?

G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
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Weylyn Savan
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  • Do you want to do a one-way sync, or do you need to update the files both ways? – Kusalananda Sep 15 '17 at 20:37
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    You seem to know one correct command (`rsync`). What have you tried so far? – roaima Sep 15 '17 at 20:57
  • @Kusalananda a one-way sync is enough for now because i want to delete dir1, but a two-way sync would be useful later. – Weylyn Savan Sep 16 '17 at 18:02
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    @roaima I only tried `rsync -rtvu dir1 dir2/` as mentioned [here](http://www.jveweb.net/en/archives/2010/11/synchronizing-folders-with-rsync.html#jveweb_en_014_05) without `--delete`. Now i see that the problem was the missing '/' from the end of 'dir1'. – Weylyn Savan Sep 16 '17 at 18:02

1 Answers1

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To sync the contents of dir1 to dir2 on the same system, type:

rsync -av --progress --delete dir1/ dir2

-a, --archive
        archive mode

--delete
        delete extraneous files from dest dirs

-v, --verbose
        Verbose mode (increase verbosity)

--progress
        show progress during transfer

                        — from rsync(1)

Note : The / after dir1 is necessary to mean "the contents of dir1".  Without the trailing slash, would place dir1, including the directory, within dir2. This would create a hierarchy that looks like:

…/dir2/dir1/[files]
Hunter.S.Thompson
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