ou may have noticed that there is a trailing slash (/) at the end of the first argument in the above commands:

rsync -a dir1/ dir2

This is necessary to mean “the contents of dir1”. The alternative, without the trailing slash, would place dir1, including the directory, within dir2. This would create a hierarchy that looks like:

~/dir2/dir1/[files]

Always double-check your arguments before executing an rsync command. Rsync provides a method for doing this by passing the -n or --dry-run options. The -v flag (for verbose) is also necessary to get the appropriate output:

The -P flag is very helpful. It combines the flags --progress and --partial. The first of these gives you a progress bar for the transfers and the second allows you to resume interrupted transfers:

rsync -azP source destination