/rclone_copy

title: "rclone copy"
description: "Copy files from source to dest, skipping identical files."
# autogenerated - DO NOT EDIT, instead edit the source code in cmd/copy/ and as part of making a release run "make commanddocs"

> **Official documentation:** [https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/](https://rclone.org/commands/rclone_copy/)

rclone copy

Copy files from source to dest, skipping identical files.

Synopsis

Copy the source to the destination. Does not transfer files that are identical on source and destination, testing by size and modification time or MD5SUM. Doesn't delete files from the destination. If you want to also delete files from destination, to make it match source, use the [sync](/commands/rclone_sync/) command instead.

Note that it is always the contents of the directory that is synced, not the directory itself. So when source:path is a directory, it's the contents of source:path that are copied, not the directory name and contents.

To copy single files, use the [copyto](/commands/rclone_copyto/) command instead.

If dest:path doesn't exist, it is created and the source:path contents go there.

For example

rclone copy source:sourcepath dest:destpath

Let's say there are two files in sourcepath

sourcepath/one.txt
sourcepath/two.txt

This copies them to

destpath/one.txt
destpath/two.txt

Not to

destpath/sourcepath/one.txt
destpath/sourcepath/two.txt

If you are familiar with `rsync`, rclone always works as if you had written a trailing `/` - meaning "copy the contents of this directory". This applies to all commands and whether you are talking about the source or destination.

See the [--no-traverse](/docs/#no-traverse) option for controlling whether rclone lists the destination directory or not. Supplying this option when copying a small number of files into a large destination can speed transfers up greatly.

For example, if you have many files in /path/to/src but only a few of them change every day, you can copy all the files which have changed recently very efficiently like this:

rclone copy --max-age 24h --no-traverse /path/to/src remote:

Rclone will sync the modification times of files and directories if the backend supports it. If metadata syncing is required then use the `--metadata` flag.

Note that the modification time and metadata for the root directory will **not** be synced. See [issue #7652](https://github.com/rclone/rclone/issues/7652) for more info.

**Note**: Use the `-P`/`--progress` flag to view real-time transfer statistics.

**Note**: Use the `--dry-run` or the `--interactive`/`-i` flag to test without copying anything.

Logger Flags

The `--differ`, `--missing-on-dst`, `--missing-on-src`, `--match` and `--error` flags write paths, one per line, to the file name (or stdout if it is `-`) supplied. What they write is described in the help below. For example `--differ` will write all paths which are present on both the source and destination but different.

The `--combined` flag will write a file (or stdout) which contains all file paths with a symbol and then a space and then the path to tell you what happened to it. These are reminiscent of diff files.

• `= path` means path was found in source and destination and was identical
• `- path` means path was missing on the source, so only in the destination
• `+ path` means path was missing on the destination, so only in the source
• `* path` means path was present in source and destination but different.
• `! path` means there was an error reading or hashing the source or dest.

The `--dest-after` flag writes a list file using the same format flags as [`lsf`](/commands/rclone_lsf/#synopsis) (including [customizable options for hash, modtime, etc.](/commands/rclone_lsf/#synopsis)) Conceptually it is similar to rsync's `--itemize-changes`, but not identical -- it should output an accurate list of what will be on the destination after the command is finished.

When the `--no-traverse` flag is set, all logs involving files that exist only on the destination will be incomplete or completely missing.

Note that these logger flags have a few limitations, and certain scenarios are not currently supported:

• `--max-duration` / `CutoffModeHard`
• `--compare-dest` / `--copy-dest`
• server-side moves of an entire dir at once
• High-level retries, because there would be duplicates (use `--retries 1` to disable)
• Possibly some unusual error scenarios

Note also that each file is logged during execution, as opposed to after, so it is most useful as a predictor of what SHOULD happen to each file (which may or may not match what actually DID).

rclone copy source:path dest:path [flags]

Options

      --absolute                Put a leading / in front of path names
      --combined string         Make a combined report of changes to this file
      --create-empty-src-dirs   Create empty source dirs on destination after copy
      --csv                     Output in CSV format
      --dest-after string       Report all files that exist on the dest post-sync
      --differ string           Report all non-matching files to this file
  -d, --dir-slash               Append a slash to directory names (default true)
      --dirs-only               Only list directories
      --error string            Report all files with errors (hashing or reading) to this file
      --files-only              Only list files (default true)
  -F, --format string           Output format - see lsf help for details (default "p")
      --hash h                  Use this hash when h is used in the format MD5|SHA-1|DropboxHash (default "md5")
  -h, --help                    help for copy
      --match string            Report all matching files to this file
      --missing-on-dst string   Report all files missing from the destination to this file
      --missing-on-src string   Report all files missing from the source to this file
  -s, --separator s