Exclude files / folders from cPanel backup

Excluding files & folders from backup is a very important feature, and we recommend to use it. Each backup job has it’s own exclude list that can be edited. The exclude list will be piped to rsync (rsync’s exclude option doesn’t really support regex, it’s more of a shell globbing pattern matching).

Here you can find recommendations for files / folders to exclude.

1. cPanel generic account files

/.MirrorSearch
*/.wysiwygPro_*
*/core.[0-9]*
/tmp/*
/logs/*
/.cagefs
/.cagefs*
/.cpan
/.cpanel/caches
/.cpanel/datastore
/.cpcpan
/.sqmailattach
/.cpanel/*.sock
/access-logs/*
*/error_log
/public_ftp/*

2. Exclude email box content’s, but backup email settings (account info / passwords)

mail/*/*/cur/*
mail/*/*/new/*
mail/*/*/tmp/*
mail/*/*/.Drafts/*
mail/*/*/.Junk/*
mail/*/*/.Sent/*
mail/*/*/.Trash/*
mail/*/*/dovecot.index.*
mail/cur/*
mail/new/*
mail/tmp/*
mail/.Drafts/*
mail/.Junk/*
mail/.Sent/*
mail/.Trash/*

3. Generic user’s backup / cache temporary files

*.jpa
backup-*.tar.gz
cpmove-*.tar.gz
site-*.tar.gz
*/com_akeeba/backup/*
*/backupbuddy_backups/*
public_html/cache/*
tmp/*
logs/*
softaculous_backups/*
*/wp-content/uploads/wpcf7_captcha/*
*/wp-content/widget-cache/*
*/wp-content/cache/*
*/wptsc-cachedir/*

4. The “All in” List – cPanel generic / Mailboxes / Temporary & Cache files

*.jpa
backup-*.tar.gz
cpmove-*.tar.gz
site-*.tar.gz
.MirrorSearch
*/com_akeeba/backup/*
*/backupbuddy_backups/*
*/.wysiwygPro_*
*/core.[0-9]*
public_html/cache/*
tmp/*
logs/*
.cagefs
.cagefs*
.cpan
.cpanel/caches
.cpanel/datastore
.cpcpan
.sqmailattach
.cpanel/*.sock
access-logs/*
*/error_log
mail/*/*/cur/*
mail/*/*/new/*
mail/*/*/tmp/*
mail/*/*/.Drafts/*
mail/*/*/.Junk/*
mail/*/*/.Sent/*
mail/*/*/.Trash/*
mail/*/*/dovecot.index.*
mail/cur/*
mail/new/*
mail/tmp/*
mail/.Drafts/*
mail/.Junk/*
mail/.Sent/*
mail/.Trash/*
public_ftp/*
softaculous_backups/*
*/wp-content/uploads/wpcf7_captcha/*
*/wp-content/widget-cache/*
*/wp-content/cache/*
*/wptsc-cachedir/*