---
title: "rclone copy"
description: "Copy files from source to dest, skipping already copied."
slug: rclone_copy
url: /commands/rclone_copy/
# autogenerated - DO NOT EDIT, instead edit the source code in cmd/copy/ and as part of making a release run "make commanddocs"
---
# rclone copy

Copy files from source to dest, skipping already copied.

## Synopsis


Copy the source to the destination.  Doesn't transfer
unchanged files, testing by size and modification time or
MD5SUM.  Doesn't delete files from the destination.

Note that when the source is a directory, it is always the contents
of the directory that is copied, not the directory itself.

For example, given the following command:

    rclone copy source:sourcepath dest:destpath

Let's say there are two files in source:

    sourcepath/one.txt
    sourcepath/two.txt

The command will copy them to:

    destpath/one.txt
    destpath/two.txt

Not to:

    destpath/sourcepath/one.txt
    destpath/sourcepath/two.txt

Also note that the destination is always a directory. If the path
does not exist, it will be created as a directory and the contents of
the source will be copied into it. This is the case even if the source
path points to a file. If you want to copy a single file to a different
name you must use [copyto](commands/rclone_copyto/) instead.

For example, given the command:

    rclone copy source:sourcepath/one.txt dest:destpath/one.txt

Rclone will create a directory `dest:destpath/one.txt` and put the source file in there:

    dest:destpath/one.txt/one.txt

Not copy the single source file as a file with the given destination path,
which would be the result if copyto had been used instead:

    dest:destpath/one.txt

If you are familiar with `rsync`, rclone always works as if you had
written a trailing `/` - meaning "copy the contents of this directory".
This applies to all commands and whether you are talking about the
source or destination.

See the [--no-traverse](/docs/#no-traverse) option for controlling
whether rclone lists the destination directory or not.  Supplying this
option when copying a small number of files into a large destination
can speed transfers up greatly.

For example, if you have many files in /path/to/src but only a few of
them change every day, you can copy all the files which have changed
recently very efficiently like this:

    rclone copy --max-age 24h --no-traverse /path/to/src remote:

**Note**: Use the `-P`/`--progress` flag to view real-time transfer statistics.

**Note**: Use the `--dry-run` or the `--interactive`/`-i` flag to test without copying anything.


```
rclone copy source:path dest:path [flags]
```

## Options

```
      --create-empty-src-dirs   Create empty source dirs on destination after copy
  -h, --help                    help for copy
```

See the [global flags page](/flags/) for global options not listed here.

## SEE ALSO

* [rclone](/commands/rclone/)	 - Show help for rclone commands, flags and backends.