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.

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