# Exclude Items via Filter

Files and directories are only considered for synchronization if they pass all filter rules. They have to match at least one entry in the include list and none of the entries in the exclude list as presented in the filter configuration dialog:

- Each list item must be a file or directory path relative to synchronization base directories.
- Multiple items must be separated by | or a new line.
- Wild cards * and ? may be used: * means zero or more characters while ? represents exactly one character.

## Example: Exclude items for mirror-sync from C:\Source to D:\Target

Filter description | Filter phrase
--- | ---
Single file C:\Source\file.txt | \file.txt
Single folder C:\Source\SubFolder | \SubFolder\
All files (and folders) named thumbs.db | *\thumbs.db
All *.tmp files located in SubFolder | \SubFolder\*.tmp
Files and folders containing temp somewhere in their path | *temp*
Multiple entries separated by semicolon | *.tmp | *.doc | *.bak
All subdirectories of the base directories | *\
*.txt files located in subdirectories of base directories | \*\*.txt

## Example: Exclude a sub folder except for certain files

Set up two folder pairs with the same source and target paths but with distinct local filters:
Folder pair 1; local exclude filter: \SubFolder\
Folder pair 2; local include filter: \SubFolder\*.txt

Note

- For simple exclusions, just right-click and exclude one item or a list of items directly via the context menu on main dialog.
- A filter phrase is compared against both file and directory paths. If you want to consider directories only, you can give a hint by appending a path separator.
- On Windows both slash (/) and backslash (\) may be used as the path separator character.