how to make tar exclude hidden directories

Question

When I want to exclude directories when taring, I typically use syntax like this:

tar -zcf /backup/backup.tar.gz --exclude="/home/someuser/.ssh" /home/someuser

How can I modify this to exclude all hidden directories, for example, in addition to .ssh/, I also want to exclude .vnc/, .wine/, etc.

Jurado

Answer 1

You can use --exclude=".*"

$ tar -czvf test.tgz test/
test/
test/seen
test/.hidden
$ tar --exclude=".*" -czvf test.tgz test/
test/
test/seen

Be careful if you are taring the current directory, since it will also be excluded by this pattern matching.

$ cd test
$ tar --exclude=".*" -czvf test.tgz ./
$ tar -czvf test.tgz ./
./
./seen
./.hidden

Then you need to use --exclude='.[^/]*' as described elsewhere

$ tar --exclude='.[^/]*' -czvf test.tgz ./
./
./seen

Lifeanddeath

Or just using --exclude=".+", and setting the path to be "." – Viand

It seems --exculde=".*" is now positional and needs to go first and otherwise has no effect: tar --exclude=".*" -czvf test.tgz directory_to_be_archived – Wachter