Recently, I learned how to use "copy -urv" to back up only files that have changed or been created since the last backup. Is there any argument I can add in order to leave some files out of the backup? I just put some files (music files from a CD collection) in one of the folders that I now back up using copy -urv, but I don't want the backup to include them, because the files are large and numerous enough to probably fill up the space left on my backup HD. They're not particularly valuable or hard to replace , so I'd rather not include them in the backup. I couldn't find the answer to this in man cp.

Hi,

I am not familiar with the "copy -urv" command, but if I want to copy files and exclude some files, I use the following command:

rsync -rtvauz --exclude EXCLUDEFILE source/ destination/

You can man rsync to see exactly what all the options there are; some may be superfluous, but it's the --exclude part that's important for your question.

Hope that helps!