Script not copying over new files

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1

I am writing a script that copies over any newer files to a destination. Here is my script:


#!/bin/bash

# Usage: ./copy_folders.sh /path/to/source1 /path/to/source2 ... /path/to/destination

# Ensure at least two arguments (at least one source and one destination)
if [ "$#" -lt 2 ]; then
    echo "Usage: $0 /path/to/source1 [/path/to/source2 ...] /path/to/destination"
    exit 1
fi

# Last argument is the destination
DESTINATION="${!#}"

# Create destination directory if it doesn't exist
mkdir -p "$DESTINATION"

# Loop over all arguments except the last one (destination)
for ((i=1; i<$#; i++)); do
    SOURCE="${!i}"
    
    # Check if source directory exists
    if [ ! -d "$SOURCE" ]; then
        echo "Warning: Source directory does not exist: $SOURCE"
        continue
    fi

    echo "Copying from $SOURCE to $DESTINATION"
    rsync -av --update "$SOURCE"/ "$DESTINATION"/
done

echo "All copies completed."

To confirm it worked, I look at a recently modified doc on my source side, and compare to the destination. The file on the destination side was NOT updated. I am comparing the Date Modified value shown to me in Nemo.

2

Hello and welcome!

What’s the output of rsync? And what’s the return value of rsync? You may add something like echo "rsync exit value: $?" right after calling rsync:

(...)
    rsync -av --update "$SOURCE"/ "$DESTINATION"/
    echo "rsync exit value: $?"
done

echo "All copies completed."

You can look up exit values of rsync on the man-page.

Are you using rsync as snap? Which folders do you use as source and destination?

3

You have added a trailing slash to the source, which changes the behaviour of rsync. From man rsync:

A trailing slash on the source changes this behavior to avoid creating an additional directory level at the destination. You can think of a trailing / on a source as meaning “copy the contents of this directory” as opposed to “copy the directory by name”.

This may be what you intended, but it is a “gotcha” with rsync.

Whilst you are debugging this, you might want to add the --itemize-changes and --stats options, and redirect your output to a log file.

4

Suggest that you try GUI grsync … and enable “dry run” option to see what is going on. You will see errors.

1 Like
5

This may save you the trouble of writing a script:

The cp command has tne option to only copy new files without updating existing ones.

use the -n option for this (optionally with other options)

Example: cp -rnp will recursively copy only files which don’t exist on the destination, without updating existing files, and preserve permissions. If you want to also update existing files, use the u option instead of n.

Note: Newer versions of cp deprecates the n option, and replaces it by --update=none

6

The exit code is 0.
I am not using it as snap.
Destination: mounted SSD, Source: Local folder