Include specific folders of excluded folder

[dgraziotin]

I defined a simple backup with source /Users/daniel.

I want to exclude backing up /Users/daniel/Library
But I want to backup /Users/daniel/Library/Mobile Documents/ and /Users/daniel/Library/Application Support/.

I thought that the following would achieve this but I am likely using it wrong.

/Users/daniel/Library/
+ /Users/daniel/Library/Mobile Documents/
+ /Users/daniel/Library/Application Support

(I also tried ! /Users/daniel/Library/)

[goebbe]

@dgraziotin
It seems that you want to use a combination of "excludes" and "includes".
This is possible, however, you have to use --pattern or --patterns-from options, via Vorta > Schedule > Shell Commands > Extra arguments for borg create.

You can find examples on how-to use both options here: #1991

The following "Extra arguments for borg" should work for your case:
--pattern=+ Users/daniel/Library/Mobile Documents/ --pattern=+ re:Users/daniel/Library/Application\sSupport --pattern=- Users/daniel/Library/**/.*
When using --pattern (as a command line option), keep in mind that matching special characters can be tricky.

If you have many or complicated patterns, it is likely better to use --patterns-from to point to a text-file with the patterns: #1991 (comment)

Order matters! Always start with include "+" patterns, then specify exclude "-" patterns.
Do not use the use "!" for excluding folders, when you want to include something from these folders.

[dgraziotin]

macOS 15.0, Vorta (and Borg) installed via homebrew, all latest versions.

[goebbe]

O.k. apparently we ran into an issue/inconsistency with borgbackup, here.
I tried to reproduce on Linux - and also had trouble matching a folder with a space in its name, using --pattern.
My folder was named test folder

• Putting the file path into quotation marks (single or double) did not work.
• Escaping the space with \ did not work.
• Replacing the space with \s did not work either, using the standard sh: matcher.

The following worked for me. Note, however, that I had to use the "re:" matcher for regular expressions, in order to replace the single space by \s, here:
--pattern=+re:home/user/test\sfolder

In many cases, it may be sufficient to replace the space by ?. However, this may also match other names, since ? matches any single letter: --pattern=+home/user/test?sfolder matches test folder but would also match testAfolder or test2folder and so on.

I opened an issue for borg: borgbackup/borg#8578

Note: When using --patterns-from with a pattern file, it is possible to match as follows:
+home/user/test folder
However, this does not work using --pattern on the command line.

[goebbe]

Only --pattern=+Users/daniel/Library/Mobile\sDocuments seems to work

I just tested this on Linux: While I did not get an error message when simply replacing the space by \s - the pattern does not seem to actually match the folder.
Did you check if the files/folders have actually been included in your backup?

[dgraziotin]

Yes, apologies. I took the lack of errors as a sign that it worked. In fact, it did not. I will now test --patterns-from and report in the Borg issue.

[goebbe]

I opened a Vorta issue: #2164
As a workaround, the following command-line options work to match names with white space to include items using Vorta:
--pattern=+re:home/user/test\sfolder
or
--pattern=+home/user/test?sfolder