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Exclusion patterns

Patterns decide what is left out of a backup. They are matched against paths inside your home folder (or inside an extra folder, for its own list).

Rules

Pattern Matches
A name without / A file or folder with that name anywhere. notes.tmp leaves out every notes.tmp.
A path with / That path from the top of your home folder. .local/share/Trash leaves out only ~/.local/share/Trash.
Ending with / Folders only. build/ leaves out folders called build, but not a file called build.
* Any characters within one name (not /). *.iso matches ubuntu.iso anywhere.
** Any number of folders (including none). .config/**/Cache/ matches .config/Code/Cache and .config/a/b/Cache.
? Exactly one character (not /). IMG_????.jpg matches IMG_0001.jpg.
Starting with # A comment; ignored.

Matching is case-sensitive: Videos/ doesn't match videos.

A single name always matches anywhere

A leading / is removed before matching, so /Videos/ is the same as Videos/: every folder called Videos, at any depth. A pattern with a / inside is anchored to the top of your home folder: Documents/Videos/ leaves out only ~/Documents/Videos. There is no way to say "only the Videos folder at the top" with a single name; usually that makes no difference.

Examples

You want to leave out Pattern
Your Videos folder (and any folder called Videos) Videos/
Only ~/Downloads/iso Downloads/iso/
All disk images *.iso
Every node_modules folder node_modules/
Virtual machine disks *.qcow2, *.vdi, *.vmdk
Every folder called cache (lower case) under .config .config/**/cache/
A big log file in one place Projects/server/app.log

Default exclusions

Deucalion leaves these out by default. You can remove any of them in Settings or with deucalion exclude remove, and get them back with Restore Defaults or deucalion exclude reset:

$ deucalion exclude
  .cache/
  .thumbnails/
  .local/share/Trash/
  .local/share/recently-used.xbel
  .local/share/containers/
  .var/app/*/cache/
  .npm/_cacache/
  .config/**/Cache/
  .config/**/Code Cache/
  .config/**/GPUCache/
  .config/**/DawnCache/
  .config/**/DawnGraphiteCache/
  .config/**/DawnWebGPUCache/
  .config/**/GrShaderCache/
  .config/**/ShaderCache/
  .config/**/CacheStorage/
  .config/**/CachedData/
  .config/**/CachedExtensionVSIXs/
Pattern What it is
.cache/ Caches of every program.
.thumbnails/ Old location of picture thumbnails.
.local/share/Trash/ The Trash.
.local/share/recently-used.xbel The list of recently used files.
.local/share/containers/ Podman container storage.
.var/app/*/cache/ Caches of Flatpak apps.
.npm/_cacache/ npm's download cache.
.config/**/Cache/, Code Cache/, GPUCache/, DawnCache/, DawnGraphiteCache/, DawnWebGPUCache/, GrShaderCache/, ShaderCache/, CacheStorage/, CachedData/, CachedExtensionVSIXs/ Caches of browsers and Electron apps (Chrome, VS Code, Slack…).

Always left out (not in the list, can't be changed): ~/.local/state/deucalion/ (Deucalion's own working folder) and ~/Deucalion-before-restore/ (the undo folder).

Optional (off by default; switches in Settings → Leave out developer folders): node_modules/, __pycache__/, .venv/, venv/, .tox/, target/debug/.