Thanks James for the reply.

I tried the advanced exlcusion pattern, but somehow got it wrong (the item was added again). I guess I have to grok the syntax and logic behind those patterns more before I can confidently write them up. A "Test" function would be cool where you would drop an item (file or folder) onto a little field next to a pattern and it would tell you whether that pattern would match the item or not. But again, that's my fault of not yet feeling confident with the syntax and options.

But anyway, yes, the pattern exclusion will be the next thing I'll try.

The item I want to exclude is a folder (and all of its contents), named:

/Volumes/Daten/CaptureOne Fotobibliothek/_LEGACY Christian Aperture Fotos

The above is the path obtained by using Finder's contextual menu item with the "Copy ? as pathname" option. Do I need to prefix this with something else on Catalina? Which pattern type, and which syntax would I need to use to exclude that folder (and its contents)?

Thanks,
Christian

I am having a similar issue with excluded items not working for me.

Scenario:
- "Data" QRecall archive.
- Started capturing to it, saw it captured an unwanted item. Correct, because I did not exclude it.
- Stopped the capture, used "Delete item?" on the item I unwantedly started to capture. The layer of course was identified as incomplete. (Retain deleted item for 0 days was and is set for that archive.)
- In the archive settings, I added the folder whose contents I did not want to capture.
- Started capture action again, but the item again got captured. Stopped capturing, deleted item, turned on "log capture decisions" in Advanced preferences, restarted machine.
- Started another capture, and again, the excluded item was captured.
- Tried to find in the log window the reason why it was captured, but found no decision logs or similar whatsoever, only very basic info (I moved details all to the right and included all types of log events, of course).

Why would that folder (and contents) be captured again and again, even when it was excluded in the archive settings?

Further details:
- the enclosing item to capture(!) is a folder at the root of an external disk attached via Thunderbolt 3.
- the item to exclude(!) is a subfolder within the previous item.

I am running on macOS 10.15.3 (Catalina).

How can I see the log of the capture decision why this item is included in the capture, when it resp. its enclosing folder is added in the Excluded Items liust of the archive?

Thanks,
Christian