Exclude directory, but include named subdirectories

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Posts: 3
Joined: 15 Jul 2020

MouseMan

I'm trying to get a seemingly simple setup working...

I want to backup a drive, S: --> B:.

I want to exclude the directory:
S:\Games
... As it's huge.

However, I want to include some save/settings/etc from within specific named directories within the Games directory:
S:\Games\Game 1\Addons
S:\Games\Game 203\Saves
How can I do this?

https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=exclude-items seems to imply that if I set up like:

Image

It should work, but it doesn't... Running a compare simply ignores everything in the Exclude, without being intelligent enough to compare (with a regex - ^(group1)\\.*, with example) that there is an include directory that's a subset of the exclude.

Am I missing something? Or does FreeFileSync simply lack this feature?

Thanks.
Posts: 3
Joined: 15 Jul 2020

MouseMan

I think I've solved my own problem... I leave this for anyone who might stumble across this looking for a solution.

What I didn't realise about FreeFileSync, is that instead of thinking about a sync job as only doing one thing, it instead can do lots of jobs. I guess I should refer to the main savefile/job as a profile instead, and each sub-job, simply as a job.

So profile:

Image

and jobs:

Image

Now, it's possible to setup multiple jobs in a profile, and have multiple filters setup for them.

So I've now got two jobs:

- S: --> B:
- S:\Games --> B:\Games

Then, in the "Filters (F7)", I have some regular exclusions setup (nothing to do with Games at all), in the "All folder pairs":

Image

In the S: --> B: job, I include everything * (the default), but exclude the Games folder:

Image

Then finally, in the Games job, I include only the folders I want backed up, removing the default *, and leave the exclude blank.

Image

This then backs my entire S:\ drive, excluding the S:\Games folder, except for the directories I specify directly in the second job.

Hope this helps someone in the future. :)

PS: Thanks for the awesome software!