Cannot exclude hidden files

Interesting. I specifically intended them to be included (in the typical case, I wanted the user's various dot directories that have his/her configuration info to be included -- a full backup).

What's your use case?

Could you instead not backup $HOME, but rather backup the various folders you *are* interested in?

My request stemmed from the fact that I have two computers, one at work (still my own personal computer) and one at home which I'd like to have duplicate sets of files with which to work. As you can imagine, copying configuration files is undesirable between the two different machines.

The solution you presented is viable, I will copy individual directories ensuring they don't have hidden configuration files which could wreak havok, but I will leave my question as a feature request to consider in the future.

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Hmm, OK. Glad there's a workaround. I'll create a wishlist bug in a bit for the feature request (and mark this question as answered).

But I wanted to note that it sounds like you're using Déjà Dup as a synchronization program, which is possible, but isn't really its intent. You may be interested in something like Unison (haven't used it, but heard it's good): http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/

In my case, I would like to exclude for example .mutt directory. I do not want all imap data to be backed-up because they are already on mail server. I think it's legitimate to be able to exclude generally any dotted file.

Jiri, you can still exclude specific dot directories like .mutt. Press Ctrl+H in the "add exclude directory" dialog. Or press Ctrl+L and manually type it in.