Recursively compress files in a directory and subdirectories using command line "zip" tool in Mac OS X and exclude .DS

I'm trying to create a ZIP file using the command line zip tool that comes with the Mac OS X Terminal. I want to recursively compress the contents of the current folder but excluding .DS_Store files. I'm trying with this:

zip -r myarchive.zip . -x .DS_Store

The -x .DS_Store excludes the .DS_Store file in the current folder, but not in the recursively added subfolders. How do I exclude all the .DS_Store files from ALL subfolders as well?

OMA

Posted 2015-09-11T15:16:27.507

Reputation: 1 221

Answers

Add a wildcard to the exclude option

zip -r myarchive.zip . -x "*.DS_Store"

fd0

Posted 2015-09-11T15:16:27.507

Reputation: 1 222

Thanks for your answer. It works, but, why? :). Could you please explain? – OMA – 2015-09-11T17:43:33.343

The * expands to nothing or any part of a path as zip recursively compresses the files and their directories. So, ./.DS_Store then ./*/.DS_Store and so on are excluded from the archive. – fd0 – 2015-09-11T17:56:52.327

Ah, interesting. So the wildcard works differently than in the Windows world, where "*.DS_Store" would just mean "any file that ends with .DS_Store" – OMA – 2015-09-11T22:03:30.517

Most of the times I want to exclude all hidden files, such as .DS_Store or .git or .gitignore

With one simple command you can take care of all of that and compress all files and subfolders recursively

zip -r archive.zip folder -x "*/\.*"

Or even better, create a function in zsh to make life easier

open ~/.zshrc

Add the following code in your aliases section

function zip-visible(){
    zip -r $1 $2 -X -x "*/\.*"
}

Reload the zsh configuration

source ~/.zshrc

Use like this

zip-visible archive.zip folder

alev

Posted 2015-09-11T15:16:27.507

Reputation: 101

Recursively compress files in a directory and subdirectories using command line "zip" tool in Mac OS X and exclude .DS_Store files from ALL subfolders

Answers