High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! rsync is a software application and network protocol for Unix-like systems (with ports to Windows) that synchronizes files and directories from one location to another while minimizing data transfer by using delta encoding when appropriate. Quoting the official website: "rsync is a file transfer program for Unix systems. rsync uses the `rsync algorithm` which provides a very fast method for bringing remote files into sync." An important feature of rsync not found in most similar programs/protocols is that the mirroring takes place with only one transmission in each direction. rsync can copy or display directory contents and copy files, optionally using compression and recursion.