rsync delete files on sending side after transfer

rsync
eran picture eran · Jul 17, 2014 · Viewed 21.2k times · Source

I want to download a large amount of data from a remote machine. I'd like the data to be erased on the remote machine everytime a file finishes downloading.

How do I do that? Is there a flag for rsync to do this?

Answer

ganeshragav picture ganeshragav · Jul 17, 2014

You need to pass the --remove-source-files option to the rsync command. It tells rsync to remove from the sending side the files (meaning non-directories) that are a part of the transfer and have been successfully duplicated on the receiving side. Do not pass the --delete option to rsync command as it delete extraneous files from destination directory. Delete source after successful transfer using rsync.

The syntax is:

rsync --remove-source-files -options /path/to/src/ /path/to/dest
rsync --remove-source-files -options /path/to/src/ computerB:/path/to/dest
rsync --remove-source-files -av /path/to/src/*.avi computerB:/path/to/dest

Reference : http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-unix-bsd-appleosx-rsync-delete-file-after-transfer/

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