Rclone is a command line program to sync files and directories to and from
Features
Links
Rclone is a Go program and comes as a single binary file.
Download the relevant binary.
Or alternatively if you have Go installed use
go get github.com/ncw/rcloneand this will build the binary in $GOPATH/bin.
See the Usage section of the docs for how to use rclone, or run rclone -h.
First you'll need to configure rclone. As the object storage systems have quite complicated authentication these are kept in a config file .rclone.conf in your home directory by default. (You can use the --config option to choose a different config file.)
The easiest way to make the config is to run rclone with the config option:
rclone configSee the following for detailed instructions for
Rclone syncs a directory tree from one storage system to another.
Its syntax is like this
Syntax: [options] subcommand <parameters> <parameters...>Source and destination paths are specified by the name you gave the storage system in the config file then the sub path, eg "drive:myfolder" to look at "myfolder" in Google drive.
You can define as many storage paths as you like in the config file.
Copy the source to the destination. Doesn't transfer unchanged files, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. Doesn't delete files from the destination.
Sync the source to the destination, changing the destination only. Doesn't transfer unchanged files, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. Destination is updated to match source, including deleting files if necessary. Since this can cause data loss, test first with the --dry-run flag.
List all the objects in the the path with size and path.
List all directories/containers/buckets in the the path.
List all the objects in the the path with modification time, size and path.
Produces an md5sum file for all the objects in the path. This is in the same format as the standard md5sum tool produces.
Make the path if it doesn't already exist
Remove the path. Note that you can't remove a path with objects in it, use purge for that.
Remove the path and all of its contents.
Checks the files in the source and destination match. It compares sizes and MD5SUMs and prints a report of files which don't match. It doesn't alter the source or destination.
Enter an interactive configuration session.
Prints help on rclone commands and options.
Rclone has a number of options to control its behaviour.
Options which use TIME use the go time parser. A duration string is a possibly signed sequence of decimal numbers, each with optional fraction and a unit suffix, such as "300ms", "-1.5h" or "2h45m". Valid time units are "ns", "us" (or "µs"), "ms", "s", "m", "h".
Options which use SIZE use kByte by default. However a suffix of k for kBytes, M for MBytes and G for GBytes may be used. These are the binary units, eg 210, 220, 2**30 respectively.
Bandwidth limit in kBytes/s, or use suffix k|M|G. The default is 0 which means to not limit bandwidth.
For example to limit bandwidth usage to 10 MBytes/s use --bwlimit 10M
This only limits the bandwidth of the data transfer, it doesn't limit the bandwith of the directory listings etc.
The number of checkers to run in parallel. Checkers do the equality checking of files during a sync. For some storage systems (eg s3, swift, dropbox) this can take a significant amount of time so they are run in parallel.
The default is to run 8 checkers in parallel.
Normally rclone will look at modification time and size of files to see if they are equal. If you set this flag then rclone will check MD5SUM and size to determine if files are equal.
This is very useful when transferring between remotes which store the MD5SUM on the object which include swift, s3, drive, and google cloud storage.
Eg rclone --checksum sync s3:/bucket swift:/bucket would run much quicker than without the --checksum flag.
When using this flag, rclone won't update mtimes of remote files if they are incorrect as it would normally.
Specify the location of the rclone config file. Normally this is in your home directory as a file called .rclone.conf. If you run rclone -h and look at the help for the --config option you will see where the default location is for you. Use this flag to override the config location, eg rclone --config=".myconfig" .config.
Set the connection timeout. This should be in go time format which looks like 5s for 5 seconds, 10m for 10 minutes, or 3h30m.
The connection timeout is the amount of time rclone will wait for a connection to go through to a remote object storage system. It is 1m by default.
Do a trial run with no permanent changes. Use this in combination with the -v flag to see what rclone would do without actually doing it. Useful when setting up the sync command.
Log all of rclone's output to FILE. This is not active by default. This can be useful for tracking down problems with syncs in combination with the -v flag.
When checking whether a file has been modified, this is the maximum allowed time difference that a file can have and still be considered equivalent.
The default is 1ns unless this is overridden by a remote. For example OS X only stores modification times to the nearest second so if you are reading and writing to an OS X filing system this will be 1s by default.
This command line flag allows you to override that computed default.
Normally rclone outputs stats and a completion message. If you set this flag it will make as little output as possible.
Normally rclone will look at modification time and size of files to see if they are equal. If you set this flag then rclone will check only the size.
This can be useful transferring files from dropbox which have been modified by the desktop sync client which doesn't set checksums of modification times in the same way as rclone.
When using this flag, rclone won't update mtimes of remote files if they are incorrect as it would normally.
Rclone will print stats at regular intervals to show its progress.
This sets the interval.
The default is 1m. Use 0 to disable.
This sets the IO idle timeout. If a transfer has started but then becomes idle for this long it is considered broken and disconnected.
The default is 5m. Set to 0 to disable.
The number of file transfers to run in parallel. It can sometimes be useful to set this to a smaller number if the remote is giving a lot of timeouts or bigger if you have lots of bandwidth and a fast remote.
The default is to run 4 file transfers in parallel.
If you set this flag, rclone will become very verbose telling you about every file it considers and transfers.
Very useful for debugging.
Prints the version number
These options are useful when developing or debugging rclone. There are also some more remote specific options which aren't documented here which are used for testing. These start with remote name eg --drive-test-option.
Write cpu profile to file. This can be analysed with go tool pprof.
Paths are specified as drive:path
Drive paths may be as deep as required, eg drive:directory/subdirectory.
The initial setup for drive involves getting a token from Google drive which you need to do in your browser. rclone config walks you through it.
Here is an example of how to make a remote called remote. First run:
rclone configThis will guide you through an interactive setup process:
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
q) Quit config
e/n/d/q> n
name> remote
What type of source is it?
Choose a number from below
1) swift
2) s3
3) local
4) drive
type> 4
Google Application Client Id - leave blank to use rclone's.
client_id>
Google Application Client Secret - leave blank to use rclone's.
client_secret>
Remote config
Go to the following link in your browser
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?access_type=&approval_prompt=&client_id=XXXXXXXXXXXX.apps.googleusercontent.com&redirect_uri=urn%3XXXXX%3Awg%3Aoauth%3XX.0%3Aoob&response_type=code&scope=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fdrive&state=state
Log in, then type paste the token that is returned in the browser here
Enter verification code> X/XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX-XXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXX-XXXXX_XXXXXXX_XXXXXXX
--------------------
[remote]
client_id =
client_secret =
token = {"AccessToken":"xxxx.x.xxxxx_xxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx","RefreshToken":"1/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx","Expiry":"2014-03-16T13:57:58.955387075Z","Extra":null}
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> yYou can then use it like this,
List directories in top level of your drive
rclone lsd remote:List all the files in your drive
rclone ls remote:To copy a local directory to a drive directory called backup
rclone copy /home/source remote:backupGoogle drive stores modification times accurate to 1 ms.
Google drive stores revisions of files. When you upload a change to an existing file to google drive using rclone it will create a new revision of that file.
Revisions follow the standard google policy which at time of writing was
Drive has quite a lot of rate limiting. This causes rclone to be limited to transferring about 2 files per second only. Individual files may be transferred much faster at 100s of MBytes/s but lots of small files can take a long time.
Paths are specified as remote:bucket (or remote: for the lsd command.) You may put subdirectories in too, eg remote:bucket/path/to/dir.
Here is an example of making an s3 configuration. First run
rclone configThis will guide you through an interactive setup process.
No remotes found - make a new one
n) New remote
q) Quit config
n/q> n
name> remote
What type of source is it?
Choose a number from below
1) swift
2) s3
3) local
4) drive
type> 2
AWS Access Key ID.
access_key_id> accesskey
AWS Secret Access Key (password).
secret_access_key> secretaccesskey
Endpoint for S3 API.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
* The default endpoint - a good choice if you are unsure.
* US Region, Northern Virginia or Pacific Northwest.
* Leave location constraint empty.
1) https://s3.amazonaws.com/
* US Region, Northern Virginia only.
* Leave location constraint empty.
2) https://s3-external-1.amazonaws.com
[snip]
* South America (Sao Paulo) Region
* Needs location constraint sa-east-1.
9) https://s3-sa-east-1.amazonaws.com
endpoint> 1
Location constraint - must be set to match the Endpoint.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
* Empty for US Region, Northern Virginia or Pacific Northwest.
1)
* US West (Oregon) Region.
2) us-west-2
[snip]
* South America (Sao Paulo) Region.
9) sa-east-1
location_constraint> 1
--------------------
[remote]
access_key_id = accesskey
secret_access_key = secretaccesskey
endpoint = https://s3.amazonaws.com/
location_constraint =
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y
Current remotes:
Name Type
==== ====
remote s3
e) Edit existing remote
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
q) Quit config
e/n/d/q> qThis remote is called remote and can now be used like this
See all buckets
rclone lsd remote:Make a new bucket
rclone mkdir remote:bucketList the contents of a bucket
rclone ls remote:bucketSync /home/local/directory to the remote bucket, deleting any excess files in the bucket.
rclone sync /home/local/directory remote:bucketThe modified time is stored as metadata on the object as X-Amz-Meta-Mtime as floating point since the epoch accurate to 1 ns.
Swift refers to Openstack Object Storage. Commercial implementations of that being:
Paths are specified as remote:container (or remote: for the lsd command.) You may put subdirectories in too, eg remote:container/path/to/dir.
Here is an example of making a swift configuration. First run
rclone configThis will guide you through an interactive setup process.
No remotes found - make a new one
n) New remote
q) Quit config
n/q> n
name> remote
What type of source is it?
Choose a number from below
1) swift
2) s3
3) local
4) drive
type> 1
User name to log in.
user> user_name
API key or password.
key> password_or_api_key
Authentication URL for server.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
* Rackspace US
1) https://auth.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0
* Rackspace UK
2) https://lon.auth.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0
* Rackspace v2
3) https://identity.api.rackspacecloud.com/v2.0
* Memset Memstore UK
4) https://auth.storage.memset.com/v1.0
* Memset Memstore UK v2
5) https://auth.storage.memset.com/v2.0
auth> 1
Tenant name - optional
tenant>
Remote config
--------------------
[remote]
user = user_name
key = password_or_api_key
auth = https://auth.api.rackspacecloud.com/v1.0
tenant =
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> yThis remote is called remote and can now be used like this
See all containers
rclone lsd remote:Make a new container
rclone mkdir remote:containerList the contents of a container
rclone ls remote:containerSync /home/local/directory to the remote container, deleting any excess files in the container.
rclone sync /home/local/directory remote:containerThe modified time is stored as metadata on the object as X-Object-Meta-Mtime as floating point since the epoch accurate to 1 ns.
This is a defacto standard (used in the official python-swiftclient amongst others) for storing the modification time for an object.
Paths are specified as remote:path
Dropbox paths may be as deep as required, eg remote:directory/subdirectory.
The initial setup for dropbox involves getting a token from Dropbox which you need to do in your browser. rclone config walks you through it.
Here is an example of how to make a remote called remote. First run:
rclone configThis will guide you through an interactive setup process:
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
q) Quit config
e/n/d/q> n
name> remote
What type of source is it?
Choose a number from below
1) swift
2) s3
3) local
4) google cloud storage
5) dropbox
6) drive
type> 5
Dropbox App Key - leave blank to use rclone's.
app_key>
Dropbox App Secret - leave blank to use rclone's.
app_secret>
Remote config
Please visit:
https://www.dropbox.com/1/oauth2/authorize?client_id=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&response_type=code
Enter the code: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_XXXXXXXXXX
--------------------
[remote]
app_key =
app_secret =
token = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_XXXX_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> yYou can then use it like this,
List directories in top level of your dropbox
rclone lsd remote:List all the files in your dropbox
rclone ls remote:To copy a local directory to a dropbox directory called backup
rclone copy /home/source remote:backupMd5sums and timestamps in RFC3339 format accurate to 1ns are stored in a Dropbox datastore called "rclone".
Dropbox datastores are limited to 100,000 rows so this is the maximum number of files rclone can manage on Dropbox.
Dropbox is case sensitive which can sometimes cause duplicated files.
If you use the desktop sync tool and rclone on the same files then the md5sums and modification times may get out of sync as far as rclone is concerned. This will cause Corrupted on transfer: md5sums differ error message when fetching files. You can work around this by using the --size-only flag to ignore the md5sums and modification times for these files.
Paths are specified as remote:bucket (or remote: for the lsd command.) You may put subdirectories in too, eg remote:bucket/path/to/dir.
The initial setup for google cloud storage involves getting a token from Google Cloud Storage which you need to do in your browser. rclone config walks you through it.
Here is an example of how to make a remote called remote. First run:
rclone configThis will guide you through an interactive setup process:
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
q) Quit config
e/n/d/q> n
name> remote
What type of source is it?
Choose a number from below
1) swift
2) s3
3) local
4) google cloud storage
5) dropbox
6) drive
type> 4
Google Application Client Id - leave blank to use rclone's.
client_id>
Google Application Client Secret - leave blank to use rclone's.
client_secret>
Project number optional - needed only for list/create/delete buckets - see your developer console.
project_number> 12345678
Access Control List for new objects.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
* Object owner gets OWNER access, and all Authenticated Users get READER access.
1) authenticatedRead
* Object owner gets OWNER access, and project team owners get OWNER access.
2) bucketOwnerFullControl
* Object owner gets OWNER access, and project team owners get READER access.
3) bucketOwnerRead
* Object owner gets OWNER access [default if left blank].
4) private
* Object owner gets OWNER access, and project team members get access according to their roles.
5) projectPrivate
* Object owner gets OWNER access, and all Users get READER access.
6) publicRead
object_acl> 4
Access Control List for new buckets.
Choose a number from below, or type in your own value
* Project team owners get OWNER access, and all Authenticated Users get READER access.
1) authenticatedRead
* Project team owners get OWNER access [default if left blank].
2) private
* Project team members get access according to their roles.
3) projectPrivate
* Project team owners get OWNER access, and all Users get READER access.
4) publicRead
* Project team owners get OWNER access, and all Users get WRITER access.
5) publicReadWrite
bucket_acl> 2
Remote config
Go to the following link in your browser
https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?access_type=&approval_prompt=&client_id=XXXXXXXXXXXX.apps.googleusercontent.com&redirect_uri=urn%3Aietf%3Awg%3Aoauth%3A2.0%3Aoob&response_type=code&scope=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.googleapis.com%2Fauth%2Fdevstorage.full_control&state=state
Log in, then type paste the token that is returned in the browser here
Enter verification code> x/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxx
--------------------
[remote]
type = google cloud storage
client_id =
client_secret =
token = {"AccessToken":"xxxx.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx","RefreshToken":"x/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx_xxxxxxxxx","Expiry":"2014-07-17T20:49:14.929208288+01:00","Extra":null}
project_number = 12345678
object_acl = private
bucket_acl = private
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> yThis remote is called remote and can now be used like this
See all the buckets in your project
rclone lsd remote:Make a new bucket
rclone mkdir remote:bucketList the contents of a bucket
rclone ls remote:bucketSync /home/local/directory to the remote bucket, deleting any excess files in the bucket.
rclone sync /home/local/directory remote:bucketGoogle google cloud storage stores md5sums natively and rclone stores modification times as metadata on the object, under the "mtime" key in RFC3339 format accurate to 1ns.
Local paths are specified as normal filesystem paths, eg /path/to/wherever, so
rclone sync /home/source /tmp/destinationWill sync /home/source to /tmp/destination
These can be configured into the config file for consistencies sake, but it is probably easier not to.
Rclone reads and writes the modified time using an accuracy determined by the OS. Typically this is 1ns on Linux, 10 ns on Windows and 1 Second on OS X.
Filenames are expected to be encoded in UTF-8 on disk. This is the normal case for Windows and OS X. There is a bit more uncertainty in the Linux world, but new distributions will have UTF-8 encoded files names.
If an invalid (non-UTF8) filename is read, the invalid caracters will be replaced with the unicode replacement character, '�'. rclone will emit a debug message in this case (use -v to see), eg
Local file system at .: Replacing invalid UTF-8 characters in "gro\xdf"With remotes that have a concept of directory, eg Local and Drive, empty directories may be left behind, or not created when one was expected.
This is because rclone doesn't have a concept of a directory - it only works on objects. Most of the object storage systems can't actually store a directory so there is nowhere for rclone to store anything about directories.
You can work round this to some extent with thepurge command which will delete everything under the path, inluding empty directories.
For the same reason as the above, rclone doesn't have a concept of a directory - it only works on objects, therefore it can't preserve the timestamps of directories.
This is free software under the terms of MIT the license (check the COPYING file included with the source code).
Copyright (C) 2012 by Nick Craig-Wood http://www.craig-wood.com/nick/
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.The project website is at:
There you can file bug reports, ask for help or contribute pull requests.
See also
Or email