the-rabak/rclone

Goal

Upload, sync, and verify files across supported cloud storage providers with rclone.

Use this skill when

• Uploading files or folders to S3, Cloudflare R2, Backblaze B2, DigitalOcean Spaces, Google Drive, Dropbox, or another supported remote.
• Syncing or backing up local content to cloud storage.
• Verifying remote uploads and troubleshooting transfer issues.

Do not use this skill when

• rclone is not installed and cannot be installed.
• No compatible provider or remote can be configured.
• You are about to run a destructive sync without understanding the effect.

Operating rules

• Always run the setup check first.
• If rclone is missing, guide installation before continuing.
• If no remotes are configured, run rclone config or rclone config create ....
• Use --dry-run before risky or large transfers.
• Use --progress for real transfers unless silence is required.
• Verify important uploads with rclone check or rclone lsl.

Procedure / Reference

Setup check

command -v rclone >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo "rclone installed: $(rclone version | head -1)" || echo "NOT INSTALLED"
rclone listremotes 2>/dev/null || echo "NO REMOTES CONFIGURED"

Install if needed

brew install rclone
curl https://rclone.org/install.sh | sudo bash
sudo apt install rclone
sudo dnf install rclone

Configure a remote interactively

rclone config

Provider quick reference

| Provider | Type | Key Settings | |----------|------|--------------| | AWS S3 | s3 | access_key_id, secret_access_key, region | | Cloudflare R2 | s3 | access_key_id, secret_access_key, endpoint (account_id.r2.cloudflarestorage.com) | | Backblaze B2 | b2 | account (keyID), key (applicationKey) | | DigitalOcean Spaces | s3 | access_key_id, secret_access_key, endpoint (region.digitaloceanspaces.com) | | Google Drive | drive | OAuth flow | | Dropbox | dropbox | OAuth flow |

Configure Cloudflare R2

rclone config create r2 s3           provider=Cloudflare           access_key_id=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY           secret_access_key=YOUR_SECRET_KEY           endpoint=ACCOUNT_ID.r2.cloudflarestorage.com           acl=private

Configure AWS S3

rclone config create aws s3           provider=AWS           access_key_id=YOUR_ACCESS_KEY           secret_access_key=YOUR_SECRET_KEY           region=us-east-1

Common operations

rclone copy /path/to/file.mp4 remote:bucket/path/ --progress
rclone copy /path/to/folder remote:bucket/folder/ --progress
rclone sync /local/path remote:bucket/path/ --progress
rclone ls remote:bucket/
rclone lsd remote:bucket/
rclone copy /path remote:bucket/ --dry-run

Useful flags

| Flag | Purpose | |------|---------| | --progress | Show transfer progress | | --dry-run | Preview without transferring | | -v | Verbose output | | --transfers=N | Parallel transfers | | --bwlimit=RATE | Bandwidth limit, for example 10M | | --checksum | Compare by checksum | | --exclude="*.tmp" | Exclude patterns | | --include="*.mp4" | Include only matching files | | --min-size=SIZE | Skip smaller files | | --max-size=SIZE | Skip larger files |

Large file uploads

rclone copy large_video.mp4 remote:bucket/ --s3-chunk-size=64M --progress
rclone copy /path remote:bucket/ --progress --retries=5

Verification

rclone check /local/file remote:bucket/file
rclone lsl remote:bucket/path/to/file

Troubleshooting

rclone lsd remote:
rclone lsd remote: -vv
rclone config show remote