How to Sync Files Efficiently in Linux (rsync)

rsync synchronizes files and directories between locations, transferring only the parts of files that have actually changed.

Key points

• Far more efficient than scp for repeated syncs, since unchanged files are skipped entirely
• rsync -avz source/ destination/ preserves permissions and timestamps (a), shows progress (v), and compresses during transfer (z)
• A trailing slash on the source directory matters — it controls whether the directory itself is copied or just its contents

Example

rsync -avz ./project/ user@server:/var/www/project/