CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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mcu
mcu

Reputation: 3512

Robocopy - /XA:SH - to exclude system, hidden directories?

It seems to only work on files. Or am I doing something wrong?

I tried backing a user folder (C:\Users\XXX) in Vista, which has a bunch of hidden/system folders. I used /XA:SHT

The folder 'AppData' is 'hidden' but NOT 'system', so it was not excluded.
Other special folders were 'hidden' AND 'system', and they were excluded. But I am not sure it was because of the /XA:SHT switch I used or some other reason, like permissions.

So, my question is, does /XA applies to directories also, or files only? I hope I don't have to manually enter all the special folders with the /XD switch.

Upvotes: 12

Views: 81738

Answers (4)

ABC
ABC

Reputation: 81

To ignore all hidden directories just add this flag:

/XD .*

Upvotes: 1

Phillip Catt
Phillip Catt

Reputation: 1

You can also /SAVE:jobname that contains all the switches you want set. The JOB file is just a text file, so you can edit it to remove source and destination, or make later changes. Then your command line would look like:

robocopy source destination /JOB:jobname

You will get all the settings you prefer, without having to re-type them every time. So doing a /XD for System Volume Information and the Recycling Bin are super easy as they pre-exist in the JOB. Do it for all the directories you want to exclude. Not to mention all the switches you use. Even create Jobs for specific Drives.

Upvotes: 0

kieran
kieran

Reputation: 548

You can try to use the /XD parameter in order to exclude a directory based on a pattern. I've found that using /XD *. excludes directories with dots. I combine it with XA:SH in order to also exclude hidden files.

Upvotes: 1

Lasse Christiansen
Lasse Christiansen

Reputation: 10325

According to the documentation /XA does only apply to files.

eXclude files with any of the given Attributes

And just to be sure - I have just tested with Robocopy on Windows 8 RTM and the flag /XA:SH does not make Robocopy ignore hidden directories.

I'm also using Robocopy to do regular backup of my user directory, and to exclude directory junction points ( like My Music ) I use the /XJD flag. Also, to avoid AppData getting copied I use the /XD flag.

My complete list of arguments looks like this: /MIR /FFT /Z /XA:SH /R:0 /LOG+:path\to\logfile.txt /TEE /XJD /NP /XD AppData

For argument reference, please see the documentation.

Upvotes: 23

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