As my home directory is larger that the max size allowed for an archive, I wanted to exclude a directory that has several TB of data (and do a separate archive for it).
When I created the home directory archive I selected

Archives:Setting

from the menu, and then in the dialog box under

Exclude:Specific Items

I dragged the directory (it was referenced from my home folder, so it listed as

UserName > ExcludeMe

for the directory. When I then had QRecall do it's initial capture, the entire directory was included. If It's of any help, the

UserName

folder is on a separate hard disk from the boot volume, i.e. it's mounted as:

//Volumes/OtherHD/Users/UserName/ExcludeMe

.

Any ideas?

Things can get a little weird when your home folder isn't on the startup volume. However, in this case I can't see any reason why your setup shouldn't have worked.

I'd suggest we start by getting a diagnostic report (in the QRecall app, choose Hello > Send Report). That will allow us to examine the actual capture and exclude paths involved. I suspect we might send you a test version of QRecall to try.

Is there a way to delete a directory and it's contents from an archive that's already created or must I delete the entire archive and try again (hoping it excludes this big directory)?

(I would have sent you the original log file, but unfortunately my cleanup program got over excited and deleted it before I could look at it)

Jeffrey wrote:Is there a way to delete a directory and it's contents from an archive that's already created ... ?

Absolutely.

Open the archive and navigate to the item(s). Select it (them) and choose Archive > Delete Items.... (See Help > QRecall Help > Guide > Advanced > Delete Items)

This will "uncapture" that item in all layers of the archive, as if it had never existed during the previous captures.

If the item still exists on your hard drive, you will want to make sure it is excluded from future capture, otherwise it will just get captured again next time. (See Help > QRecall Help > Guide > Preferences > Archive Settings and read the sections starting with "Excluded Items").

Looks like it is simply recapturing the next time a backup is performed. The drive is listed in the Archive Preferences Specific Items dialog box as simply

/UserName/ExcludeMeDir

I deleted this so there are no entries in the Specific Items section and I'll trying entering it as a reg exp pattern now:

path
//Volumes/OtherHD/Users/UserName/ExcludeMeDir

pattern:
*

infinity: checked

That attempt failed. It started backing up files and folders from the directory specified in path again

Jeffrey wrote:Looks like it is simply recapturing the next time a backup is performed. The drive is listed in the Archive Preferences Specific Items dialog box as simply

/UserName/ExcludeMeDir

This might be because your home folder is mounted on an another (not the startup) volume? This creates confusion for the bookmarks.

I deleted this so there are no entries in the Specific Items section and I'll trying entering it as a reg exp pattern now:

path
//Volumes/OtherHD/Users/UserName/ExcludeMeDir

pattern:
*

infinity: checked

Close

Absolute patterns are anchored to the root directory of each volume.

You'd actually want something like this:

/Users/UserName // ExcludeMeDir [ ] glob

To exclude the entire folder, or to be more subtle:

/Users/UserName/ExcludeMeDir // * [ ] glob

to exclude just the contents of that folder.

If you're still having problems, there are even more esoteric things to try.