Exclude all MP3 files

[threadhead]

I know this is probably a silly question, but I did RTFM, and I still can't figure it out. All I want to do is exclude all files that have an extension of '.mp3' regardless of their location. So in a new script, I added a script command of "Ignore; *.mp3". Ran the backup, and it still copied all the mp3 files.

What am I missing?

[dnanian]

Unfortunately, you can't currently do a wildcard exclusion that applies to every level of a tree. We expand wildcards based on Unix "globbing" rules (if that means anything to you -- ignore if not), and that means that the wildcard applies at a single level of the directory tree.

Are your MP3s truly scattered all over your drive?

[threadhead]

I'm a little familiar with globbing, but not the nitty-gritty specifics.

Well, all my music files (mp3 and m4a) are in the iTunes Library folder, but as I'm sure you know, they are nested according to artist and album. I guess I can exclude the entire iTunes Library folder, but this situation (excluding *all* files with a certain name structure that *are* scattered about the hard disk) does apply to some of the other things I was thinking of adding to my copy script, as soon as I got this part working

Hmm... feature request?

PS- I just paid for SD after looking at about a dozen other backup utilities. So far (except for this little snafu) I'm very impressed!

[dnanian]

In this case, I'd definitely exclude the entire iTunes Library folder (make sure to NOT start from /Volumes -- just navigate to it directly... see the FAQ for more info).

I do understand the utility of filename globals like that, but believe it or not yours is the first request we've had for the capability. (Which, I'm sure, will now open the door to a million 'me too' requests in this thread... standing by.) It would fundamentally change the way that we handle wildcard expansion, though, and -- at least for now -- there'd have to be a really good reason to do it...

Glad that you've found SD! to your liking, and welcome!

[threadhead]

Can I exclude something like this:

/Users/*/Movies

To exclude all users 'Movies' folder?

[dnanian]

Yes, that'll work just fine -- it only deals with a single level of directory, and will wildcard out all users at that level. No problem at all...

(You're hitting me at just the right minute -- as I indicated in the FAQ I'm on vacation right now, and have very occasional internet access... you're in the magic hour right now, but response will slow until tomorrow morning or so in a little while, so get the questions in while you can!)

[drock]

Originally Posted by dnanian

In this case, I'd definitely exclude the entire iTunes Library folder (make sure to NOT start from /Volumes -- just navigate to it directly... see the FAQ for more info).

I do understand the utility of filename globals like that, but believe it or not yours is the first request we've had for the capability. (Which, I'm sure, will now open the door to a million 'me too' requests in this thread... standing by.) It would fundamentally change the way that we handle wildcard expansion, though, and -- at least for now -- there'd have to be a really good reason to do it...

Glad that you've found SD! to your liking, and welcome!

I am surprised that there aren't more "me too"s yet. Coming from larger scale enterprise backup environments, globbing at any level would be a huge help (or maybe I'm just spoiled). It's nothing that can't be worked around, but it would certainly be helpful.