1. ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9952000/using-rsync-include-and-exclude-options-to-include-directory-and-file-by-pattern ) ============================================= What I want to do is run rsync only on files that begin with "file_11_" in the subdirectories and I want to be able to run just one rsync job to sync all of these files in the subdirectories. The problem is that --exclude="*" says to exclude (for example) the 1260000000/ directory, so rsync never examines the contents of that directory, so never notices that the directory contains files that would have been matched by your --include. I think the closest thing to what you want is this: rsync -nrv --include="*/" --include="file_11*.jpg" --exclude="*" \ /Storage/uploads/ /website/uploads/ (which will include all directories, and all files matching file_11*.jpg, but no other files), or maybe this: rsync -nrv --include="/[0-9][0-9][0-9]0000000/" --include="file_11*.jpg" \ --exclude="*" /Storage/uploads/ /website/uploads/ (same concept, but much pickier about the directories it will include). 2. my examples ================== source="/media/Android/" # ending with slash ! dest="/media/DATA-4T/SIK/SIK-Android/DATA-rsync/" # ending with slash ! exclude_file="/home/gerd/Android/exclude.txt" include_file="/home/gerd/Android/include.txt" include_opts="--include='Phone/' --include='Phone/My Data/' --include='My Data/*'" long_opts="--recursive -vvv --progress --update --links --protect-args" long_opts2=" --include-from=$include_file --exclude-from=$exclude_file" long_opts3="--update --delete-excluded --devices --specials" sudo rsync $dry_run $long_opts $long_opts2 $source $dest | tee ./aaa # !!! wg. spaces nicht in include Datei !!! sudo rsync $dry_run --recursive -vvv --progress --update --links --protect-args --include="Phone/" --include='Phone/My D ata/' \ --include='My Data/*' --exclude="*" $source $dest | tee ./bbb include.txt: ----------- Card/ Card/DCIM/ Card/DCIM/Camera/ Camera/* Card/Doku/ Doku/* /Card/Sounds/ Sounds/* Phone/ Phone/carbon/ Phone/carbon/com.android.providers.telephony/ com.android.providers.telephony/* com.android.providers.userdictionary/* Phone/Documents/ Documents/* 'Phone/My Data/' 'My Data/*' exclude.txt: ------------ *