guides/rclone.md

rclone

What is it

rclone is a command-line tool for syncing, copying, and moving files between local storage and remote destinations. It supports over 60 backends — SFTP, S3-compatible object storage, WebDAV, SMB, and cloud providers like Backblaze B2, Hetzner Object Storage, and Filen among many others.

Think of it as rsync, but with native support for cloud and network remotes baked in, and significantly better transfer progress output.

What it is mainly used for

• Copying files to/from remote servers over SFTP
• Syncing directories to object storage (backups, offsite copies)
• Moving large amounts of data between locations reliably and resumably
• Replacing scp in scripts (scp is deprecated; rclone handles resume, verification, and progress properly)

Installation

brew install rclone          # macOS
sudo apt install rclone      # Debian/Ubuntu

Configuring a remote

rclone uses named remotes — connection profiles you configure once and reference by name forever after. Run the interactive wizard:

rclone config

Select n for new remote, give it a name (e.g. seedbox), then select the backend type. For an SSH/SFTP server:

• Type: sftp
• Host: ds113081.seedhost.eu
• User: god
• Port: 22 (default, just press Enter)
• Password: leave blank if you use SSH key auth
• Key file: leave blank to use your default ~/.ssh/ keys

Once saved, the remote is available by name in all rclone commands.

Config lives at ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf. If running rclone as root (e.g. from a cron job via sudo), copy the config:

sudo mkdir -p /root/.config/rclone
sudo cp ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf /root/.config/rclone/rclone.conf

Core commands

copy

Copies source to destination. Skips files that already exist and are identical. Does not delete anything at the destination.

rclone copy /local/path seedbox:/remote/path -P

sync

Makes destination identical to source. Deletes files at destination that don't exist at source. Use with care.

rclone sync /local/path seedbox:/remote/path -P

move

Copies files to destination then deletes them from source.

rclone move /local/path seedbox:/remote/path -P

ls / lsd / lsl

List files, directories, or files with timestamps.

rclone lsd seedbox:/remote/path       # list directories
rclone ls seedbox:/remote/path        # list files
rclone lsl seedbox:/remote/path       # list with timestamps and sizes

check

Verifies that source and destination are identical without transferring anything.

rclone check /local/path seedbox:/remote/path

Real examples

Copy a local folder to the seedbox over SFTP:

rclone copy /Volumes/Storage/Airport seedbox:/home/god/downloads/otw/ -P

Sync a folder to Hetzner Object Storage:

rclone sync /opt/docker/backups hetzner:my-bucket/backups -P

Copy from seedbox to local, limiting to 4 parallel transfers:

rclone copy seedbox:/home/god/downloads/ /Volumes/Storage/ -P --transfers=4

Dry run to see what would happen without actually doing it:

rclone copy /source/ seedbox:/dest/ --dry-run

Useful flags

Flag	What it does
-P / --progress	Live progress — files transferred, speed, ETA, overall size
--transfers=N	Number of parallel file transfers (default 4)
--dry-run	Show what would be copied/deleted without doing it
--checksum	Compare by checksum instead of size+date (slower, more accurate)
--ignore-existing	Skip files that exist at destination regardless of content
--max-age=24h	Only transfer files newer than the given age
--exclude=PATTERN	Exclude files matching a pattern (e.g. --exclude="*.tmp")
--bwlimit=10M	Limit bandwidth (e.g. 10M = 10 MB/s)
--log-file=/path	Write output to a log file (useful for cron jobs)
--retries=N	Number of retries on failure (default 3)

Notes

• Unlike rsync, rclone does not use user@host:/path syntax directly. Always configure a named remote and reference it by name.
• rclone's -P progress is far more useful than rsync's --progress — shows overall transfer stats, ETA, and per-file progress simultaneously.
• copy is the safe default. Use sync only when you explicitly want destination to mirror source (it deletes files).
• scp is officially deprecated in OpenSSH. rclone over SFTP is the modern replacement for scripts that need to move files to remote servers.