How to print files that would have been changed using rsync?

Question

Is there a way to get rsync to print the full filepaths to all files that are different without actually transferring any files?

Alternatively, I need a way to diff the files across two trees (over SSH) based only on change in size or last-modified time.

score 50 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 14 '18 at 20:48

50

Rsync has a dry-run option:

-n, --dry-run               show what would have been transferred

I am not sure if this is what you want.

If you want to diff the files across two trees, you could maybe recursively search the two directions with find and pipe to output to ls and pipe both to a file. You could then use diff to compare the files.

edited Oct 14 '18 at 20:48

slm

10,249

answered Apr 02 '13 at 04:32

Vincent

1,130

5

+1, this is built in to rsync. The detail of the output of --dry-run will depend on your use of the -v and --progress options - so if you get no output at all check these options are set as needed. I've noticed that it will send directory names even when files have not changed, but you can filter these out by passing the output through sed or similar. – David Spillett Apr 02 '13 at 16:55
19

But --dry-run seems to show files even if they are identical. – Quantum7 Oct 23 '18 at 17:03

kabZX · Answer 2 · 2015-10-19T12:09:58.677

19

I prefer to use the --out-format to see the details, piping it to less:

rsync -azh --dry-run --delete-after --out-format="[%t]:%o:%f:Last Modified %M" source destination | less

edited Oct 19 '15 at 12:09

answered Jul 04 '15 at 14:21

kabZX

821
9
15

score 16 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 27 '15 at 10:47

16

rsync -rvn localdir targetdir

The -n means to show actions only (without any action being performed).

Note that you need the 'v' or it won't show you anything! (the rest of the answers forget this...)

answered Aug 27 '15 at 10:47

Hugo Zaragoza

260

7

For followers -n is equivalent to "--dry-run" :) – rogerdpack Nov 29 '18 at 19:59

score 7 · Answer 4 · answered May 04 '19 at 09:30

Building on other answers and https://serverfault.com/a/618740/114520

use --dry-run (or -n) to avoid modification
use --itemize-changes (or -i) to find changes
use --archive (or -a) to get all subdirectories
use egrep to filter out entries starting by dot (no change)

Which gives you: rsync -nia source destination | egrep -v "sending incremental file list" | egrep -v "^\."

If you just want one way, you may change the command:

for changes from source to destination: rsync -nia source destination | egrep -v "sending incremental file list" | egrep -v "^(\.|<)"
for changes from destination to source: rsync -nia source destination | egrep -v "sending incremental file list" | egrep -v "^(\.|>)"

And if you need only the files, just add awk magic: rsync -nia source destination | egrep -v "sending incremental file list" | egrep -v "^\." | awk '{print $2}'

I tried the command above but it appears to print only changed subdirectories. If there any files that are changed/new in directory itself they are not getting printed. — shaifali Gupta, Jul 18 '20 at 18:29
@shaifaliGupta are your files starting by a dot like .? If so, remove the second | egrep and you'll be fine — Yvan, Jul 19 '20 at 19:12

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Nov 29 '18 at 20:15

The truth of the matter is that if you run rsync -v ... and it outputs a filename to the screen, that file is being transferred (or would have been transferred, if you are doing a --dry-run). To ascertain why rsync was about to transfer it, use itemize mode: https://serverfault.com/a/618740/27813

As others have noted, by default rsync just compares based on file size and timestamp, which both have to match else a "delta copy" is started on that file. If you really want to see which files are different, use "-c" checksum mode.

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 23 '21 at 10:51

In my case I wanted to see the difference between two backups that I already had where the newest was in a directory called backup.0 and the previous in backup.1. rsync would output every single file in backup.0 when using

rsync -a --delete --itemize-changes --dry-run ./backup.0 ./backup.1

but what I actually had to do was add / to the end of the directories:

rsync -a --delete --itemize-changes --dry-run ./backup.0/ ./backup.1/

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 02 '13 at 16:43

I would go for something like this:

#! /bin/bash 

set -eu   ## Stop on errors and on undefined variables

## The local directory name
LOCAL_DIR=$1
## The remote directory in rsync sintax. Example: "machine:directory"
REMOTE_DIR=$2

shift 
shift 
# Now the first two args are gone and any other remaining arguments, if any, 
# can be expanded with $* or $@

# Create temporary file in THIS directory (hopefully in the same disk as $1:
# we need to hard link, which can only made in the same partition)
tmpd="$(mktemp -d  "$PWD/XXXXXXX.tmp" )"

# Upon exit, remove temporary directory, both on error and on success
trap 'rm -rf "$tmpd"' EXIT

# Make a *hard-linked* copy of our repository. It uses very little space 
# and is very quick 
cp -al "$LOCAL_DIR" "$tmpd"

# Copy the files. The final «"$@"» allows us to pass on arguments for rsync 
# from the command line (after the two directories).
rsync -a "$REMOTE_DIR"/   "$tmpd/"  --size-only "$@"

# Compare both trees
meld "$LOCAL_DIR"  "$tmpd"

For example:

$ cd svn 
$ rsyncmeld myproject othermachine:myproject -v --exclude '*.svn' --exclude build

How to print files that would have been changed using rsync?

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