How can I sync two local directories?

Question

I have two backup directories (dir1 and 2) on two different (local) HDDs and I want to create one of them. How can I really sync their contents so that both directories will have the same contents?

Do you want to do a one-way sync, or do you need to update the files both ways? — Kusalananda, Sep 15 '17 at 20:37
You seem to know one correct command (rsync). What have you tried so far? — Chris Davies, Sep 15 '17 at 20:57
@Kusalananda a one-way sync is enough for now because i want to delete dir1, but a two-way sync would be useful later. — Weylyn Savan, Sep 16 '17 at 18:02
@roaima I only tried rsync -rtvu dir1 dir2/ as mentioned here without --delete. Now i see that the problem was the missing '/' from the end of 'dir1'. — Weylyn Savan, Sep 16 '17 at 18:02

Hunter.S.Thompson · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-15T22:09:58.030

To sync the contents of dir1 to dir2 on the same system, type:

rsync -av --progress --delete dir1/ dir2

-a, --archive
archive mode

--delete
delete extraneous files from dest dirs

-v, --verbose
Verbose mode (increase verbosity)

--progress
show progress during transfer

^{— from rsync(1)}

Note : The / after dir1 is necessary to mean "the contents of dir1". Without the trailing slash, would place dir1, including the directory, within dir2. This would create a hierarchy that looks like:

…/dir2/dir1/[files]

How can I sync two local directories?

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