rsync

• general

  -a: archive mode, equals, -rlptgoD, in a word, it is recursive and preserve almost everything from source to target.
  -v: verbose
  -P: equals --progress --partial, show progress, and allow resume.
  

• Copy with exclusion

  # copy source to destination, excluding source/folder
  rsync -avP source/ destination --exclude folder
  
  # exclude multiple
  rsync -avP source/ destination --exclude=folder --exclude=folder2 # must add =
  rsync -avP source/ destination --exclude={folder,folder2} # brace expansion, no space after the comma !!!
  

• alternative of scp

  # default port 22
  rsync -avP -e ssh local_file user@ip:remote_file
  # custom ssh port
  rsync -avP -e "ssh -p 23" local_file user@ip:remote_file
  

• Super fast remove (for large and recursive directories)

  mkdir empty_dir
  rsync -a --delete empty_dir/ dir_to_delete/ # much more faster than rm -rf
  rm -rf empty_dir