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.
3 Answers
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.
1You 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.
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:jobnameYou 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.
