I am trying to figure out what command I have to use in order to get rsync to make a backup folder thats name is the current date.

So far I have been trying this:

rsync -avz --backup --backup-dir="/home/robert/Test/'date +%Y-%m-%d'" -e ssh robert@server:/home/robert/Test

That just created a folder called "date +%Y-%m-%d", which isn't quite what I wanted. I literally just want it to say 23/08/2008 or whatever the date is on the day that I do the backup.

Does anyone know how to do this, all the commands I try that I find on the internet lead to similar results as above.

What you may be seeing on sites is the use of a backtick ` - not a single quote '. As you've discovered the difference is quite important! I've edited your command above with the $() notation, which is a lot less ambiguous.

Thanks pwc101 - that worked just fine!