Rsync copy directory contents but not directory itself

rsync interprets a directory with no trailing slash as copy this directory, and a directory with a trailing slash as copy the contents of this directory.

Try rsync -av ~/foo/ [email protected]:/var/www/bar/

Not related only to rsync, but when you are looking for examples on how to use a GNU/Linux command, you can use "eg" which displays explicit examples. eg is available here, with instructions on how to install it: https://github.com/srsudar/eg

The result for eg rsync is as follow

# rsync


copy the folder source_dir and its content into destination_dir

    rsync -av source_dir destination_dir


copy the contents of source_dir (trailing slash) into destination_dir

    rsync -av source_dir/ destination_dir

It's simple,

rsync /var/www/ /home/var - copies the contents of /var/www/ but not the www folder itself.

rsync /var/www /home/var - copies the folder www along with all its contents.