Ignoring Directories When Backing up with Borg

Sep 14, 2018

Borg backup has a --exclude-if-present flag, which allows you to ignore a directory from being backed up, If it contains a certain ‘tag’ file.

So given the following directory structure, which we want to back up:

+ MyFiles
	+ dirA
		- file_one.pdf
		- file_two.pdf
	+ dirB
		- spreadsheet.xsl
		- image.png

If we want to ignore dirB from being backed up by borg, we have to create a tag file in that directory:

$ cd dirB
$ touch borg-ignore-dir

Note: the tag file does not have to be named borg-ignore-dir. You can name it however you like.

Now we can run borg backup as follows:

$ borg create --exclude-if-present borg-ignore-dir ~/borgs/MyFiles::BackupName MyFiles/

Only dirA will be backed up.

Useful Links:

Fin.

Usman Mahmood