Export and Sync Data With rsync — EasyCloudify™

TL;DR — rsync copies only what has changed, resumes interrupted transfers, and preserves permissions — making it the best tool for downloading large directories from your EasyCloudify™ Cloud VPS to your local machine.

What is rsync?

rsync is a fast, widely available file-synchronization tool that transfers only the differences between source and destination. It runs over SSH, so it uses the same secure connection and credentials you already use for your server.

Before You Start

• You have a Cloud VPS deployed and running (see Deploy a VPS Server)
• You know your server's public IP address and an SSH user (see Manage Your Server)
• rsync is installed on both your local machine and your server (it is preinstalled on most Linux distributions and macOS)

How to Download a Directory

Run this on your local machine to copy a remote directory down to your computer:

rsync -avz your-user@your-server-ip:/var/www/my-app/ ./my-app-backup/

⚠️ Trailing slashes matter. A trailing / on the source (my-app/) copies the contents of the folder into the destination. Without it, the folder itself is nested inside the destination.

Resume an Interrupted Transfer

If a transfer is interrupted, add --partial --progress and run the same command again — rsync picks up where it left off:

rsync -avz --partial --progress your-user@your-server-ip:/var/www/my-app/ ./my-app-backup/

Use a Specific SSH Key

If your key is not in the default location, pass it explicitly:

rsync -avz -e "ssh -i /path/to/your-key" your-user@your-server-ip:/data/ ./data/

💡 Tip: Data on an attached Block Storage volume lives under its mount point (for example /mnt/your-volume/). Point rsync at that path to export it.

Next Steps

• For one-off downloads or a graphical client, use SFTP or FileZilla.
• Need data from a deleted server? Recover files from a snapshot.