How To Exclude A Subfolder When Enclosing Folder Is Marked For Backup?

[davidodonnell]

This should be simple, but it’s not.

 

I want Retrospect to back up /private/var/db but NOT /private/var/db/swupd.

 

Retrospect won’t back anything up if I specify the path as a Unix path, but if I specify Folder Mac Path contains /var/db/, it marks everything in there for backing up. If I then try to add an exclusion based on every permutation of Mac Path, Unix Path, is, contains, and begins with along with /var/db/swupd | /private/var/sb/swupd or portions thereof, it will not exclude that folder (swupd).

 

Am I missing something?

[Cygnis]

When defining the Rule, do you have the scope setting (above your defined conditions) set to "Any" or "All"?

 

Are you putting both conditions in the "Include" panel? Or one in the "Include" and one in the "Exclude"?

 

(Note: I am a user of the current Windows version and pre-v8 Mac versions only, so not familiar with v8 yet, but will try to help based on my understanding of other versions.)

[Guest Steve Maser]

This should be simple, but it’s not.

 

I want Retrospect to back up /private/var/db but NOT /private/var/db/swupd.

 

Retrospect won’t back anything up if I specify the path as a Unix path, but if I specify Folder Mac Path contains /var/db/, it marks everything in there for backing up. If I then try to add an exclusion based on every permutation of Mac Path, Unix Path, is, contains, and begins with along with /var/db/swupd | /private/var/sb/swupd or portions thereof, it will not exclude that folder (swupd).

 

Am I missing something?

 

 

You definitely have to use "Mac Path contains" for OSX clients.

 

But you should be able to exclude with an exclude statement like:

 

Folder Mac Path Contains swupd

 

 

It's possible there's some trick about including /private/ in this -- you might just try /var/db/swupd/ and leave out the "private" from the path, too?

[f30e6e60-a263-4d69-8f60-c92703669308]

Am I missing something?

 

 

Just a screen shot of the Rule you are using...

[6bb4e311-4536-4d71-81d2-1910303931c9]

Folder Mac Path Contains swupd

 

 

Which actually will disable backup of ANY folder that has this name inside the selected source.

 

E.g. I don't want to backup the Pictures folder inside the User folder. But of course I want to backup every folder, even if it is named "Pictures" that is inside the Documents folder of the user.

 

I don't see any way to to that in RS.

[Guest Steve Maser]

I think you have to be very explicit for when you want to exclude something because rules do not support a wildcard character

 

So you can't say "folder name is /users/*/Pictures" (unfortunately -- unless I'm missing something really obvious...)

 

 

For my users with exceptionally large Pictures folders, I have to exclude /users/<username>/Pictures.

 

 

I fully agree if you have hundreds of user accounts, that's a pain and hopefully wildcards in rules will eventually surface in a Retrospect update sometime.

[6bb4e311-4536-4d71-81d2-1910303931c9]

Yep, having many members is really bringing that bottleneck to shine... AND since we also experience periodic crash and loss of the setup, even in the backup file, this is even worse, for we have to enter all those exclusions manually again.