“Im still trying to figure out how to make sure I dont keep creating the folder inside the folder by leaving off trailing slashe”

I had this problem too! You can use dot syntax (something like ‘path/to/./folder’ – some experimentation probably required to work out exactly what you want) to avoid creating unnecessary folders

rsync creates the end folder name in the target folder *unless* you include the / at the end of both paths.

IMPORTANT WARNING: please use “–whole-file” instead of allowing the partial file to remain if the command is stopped or fails for some reason. I have found that binary partial copies don’t always copy properly on restart. I don’t know why and partial updates have worked in the past, but if this is a backup, don’t take chances. I move 100s of TB on large Linux databases quite often with parallel runs of rsync. It is a great tool, but the possible corruption issue has bit me in the tail more than once.

The following creates the end paths which you don’t want. (note -a includes -r and -t)

rsync -auvh –stats –progress –whole-file /src/path/folder1 /target/path/folder1

results /target/path/folder1/folder1

Adding the forward slashes, I know it is not well documented, copies the contents of /src/path/folder1 into /target/path/folder1

So the following does what you want.

rsync -auvh –stats –progress –whole-file /src/path/folder1/ /target/path/folder1/

results /target/path/folder1

Other things to note for other total noobs like me:
– To install only the packages you want from Cygwin, do not select the top’All’/install. It WILL install everything. Cygwin is massive, around 18gb I think, in total. Go to the specific packages and select install from those.
– Select a mirror that is close to your location, and preferably use ftp for speed.
– To access the C:/cygwin folder from your terminal, go up a level to C, as your initial terminal window is in your local user level.
– Any spaces in names of folders or user names can be surrounded by apostrophes to escape the spaces.
– Note that names of folders for ‘Documents’, ‘Pictures’ etc do not contain ‘My Pictures’, for example, they are just called ‘Documents’, Pictures’ when accessed from C.

Hope this helps someone else getting started with this.

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