I'm trying to prevent creation of new directories on destination. The goal is to populate an existing file tree (means using --recursive) only with new files, not folders+files. The situation is quite simple, I sync and merge two file trees, A&B into one, C. Then I add files to C tree, that I would like to sync back to A and B. Both A&B trees are similar, but leaf directories differs. I tried to ask to the mailing list first if it was possible with current options, without any answer, so I guess this is not possible. Would love to be wrong and that enhancement/new feature is not. See mailing list for more details : http://www.mail-archive.com/rsync@lists.samba.org/msg27344.html And superuser question : http://superuser.com/questions/316561