How to Transfer Files with rsync over SSH: A Practical Guide

rsync over SSH combines secure encrypted transport with fast incremental transfers. Instead of copying every file on every run, rsync compares source and destination and sends only the differences — making repeat transfers of large directories much faster than scp.

Before starting, install rsync on both the source and destination machines. Installing it only on the local system is the most common setup mistake:

bashsudo apt install rsync      # Ubuntu, Debiansudo dnf install rsync      # Fedora, RHEL

How to Transfer Files with rsync over SSH

The general syntax:

bash# Local to remotersync [OPTIONS] /local/source user@host:/remote/dest/# Remote to localrsync [OPTIONS] user@host:/remote/source /local/dest/

Newer versions of rsync use SSH as the default remote shell, so -e ssh can be omitted in most cases.

The -a flag (archive mode) is the standard choice for transfers. It is equivalent to -rlptgoD and preserves symlinks, permissions, timestamps, group, owner, and device files recursively:

bashrsync -a /opt/file.zip user@12.12.12.12:/var/www/

On success, no output is produced. If the file already exists on the remote server it is overwritten. To save it under a different name, specify the filename in the destination path:

bashrsync -a /opt/file.zip user@12.12.12.12:/var/www/file2.zip

Reverse the order to pull a file from a remote server to local:

bashrsync -a user@12.12.12.12:/var/www/file.zip /opt/

Trailing Slash, Dry Run, and the –delete Option

The trailing slash rule is the most important rsync behavior to understand before transferring directories:

bashrsync -a /src/ user@host:/dest/    # copies CONTENTS of src into destrsync -a /src  user@host:/dest/    # copies the src DIRECTORY ITSELF into dest

Without the trailing slash, rsync creates a src/ subdirectory inside dest/. This is the most common cause of unexpected directory nesting.

--delete mirrors the destination to match the source exactly. Any file in the destination that does not exist in the source is deleted:

bashrsync -a --delete /src/ user@host:/dest/

Always run a dry run before using --delete. The -n flag prints every file that would be transferred or removed without making any changes:

bashrsync -a -n --delete /src/ user@host:/dest/

Add -v alongside -n for more detail in the dry run output. Running -n first should be a habit before any destructive sync.

Custom Ports, Compression, Progress, and SSH Config

Custom SSH port. When SSH runs on a non-default port, specify it with -e:

bashrsync -a -e "ssh -p 3322" /src/ user@host:/dest/

Compression with -z reduces bandwidth usage on slow or high-latency connections:

bashrsync -a -z /src/ user@host:/dest/

For fast local network transfers or files that are already compressed (zip, jpg, gz), -z adds CPU overhead with little benefit.

Progress and partial transfers. The -P flag combines two behaviors: it shows a live progress bar and keeps partially transferred files so an interrupted transfer can be resumed:

bashrsync -a -P /src/ user@host:/dest/

For very large transfers, run the command inside a screen or tmux session so an SSH disconnection does not abort the transfer.

SSH config file. Host aliases defined in ~/.ssh/config work directly with rsync. If a host named myserver is configured with a custom port and key:

bashrsync -a /src/ myserver:/dest/

rsync inherits the port, key, and username from the config entry automatically.

Use -a for every transfer, check the trailing slash before syncing directories, and always run -n before --delete. For slow connections, add -z. Leave a comment below if you run into any issues.