1git-annex-import(1) General Commands Manual git-annex-import(1)
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6 git-annex-import - add a tree of files to the repository
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9 git annex import --from remote branch[:subdir] | [path ...]
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12 This command is a way to import a tree of files from elsewhere into
13 your git-annex repository. It can import files from a git-annex special
14 remote, or from a directory.
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17 Importing from a special remote first downloads all new content from
18 it, and then constructs a git commit that reflects files that have
19 changed on the special remote since the last time git-annex looked at
20 it. Merging that commit into your repository will update it to reflect
21 changes made on the special remote.
22 This way, something can be using the special remote for file storage,
24 adding files, modifying files, and deleting files, and you can track
25 those changes using git-annex.
26 You can combine using git annex import to fetch changes from a special
28 remote with git annex export to send your local changes to the special
29 remote.
30 You can only import from special remotes that were configured with
32 importtree=yes when set up with git-annex-initremote(1). Only some
33 kinds of special remotes will let you configure them this way. A per‐
34 haps non-exhastive list is the directory, s3, and adb special remotes.
35 To import from a special remote, you must specify the name of a branch.
37 A corresponding remote tracking branch will be updated by git annex
38 import. After that point, it's the same as if you had run a git fetch
39 from a regular git remote; you can merge the changes into your cur‐
40 rently checked out branch.
41 For example:
43 git annex import master --from myremote
45 git annex merge myremote/master
46 You could just as well use git merge myremote/master as the second
48 step, but using git-annex merge avoids a couple of gotchas. When using
49 adjusted branches, it adjusts the branch before merging from it. And it
50 avoids the merge failing on the first merge from an import due to unre‐
51 lated histories.
52 If you do use git merge, you can pass --allow-unrelated-histories the
54 first time you git merge from an import. Think of this as the remote
55 being a separate git repository with its own files. If you first git
56 annex export files to a remote, and then git annex import from it, you
57 won't need that option.
58 You can import into a subdirectory, using the "branch:subdir" syntax.
60 For example, if "camera" is a special remote that accesses a camera,
61 and you want to import those into the photos directory, rather than to
62 the root of your repository:
63 git annex import master:photos --from camera
65 git merge camera/master
66 The git annex sync --content command (and the git-annex assistant) can
68 also be used to import from a special remote. To do this, you need to
69 configure "remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch" to tell it what branch
70 to track. For example:
71 git config remote.myremote.annex-tracking-branch master
73 git annex sync --content
74 If a preferred content expression is configured for the special remote,
76 it will be honored when importing from it. Files that are not preferred
77 content of the remote will not be imported from it, but will be left on
78 the remote.
79 However, preferred content expressions that relate to the key can't be
81 matched when importing, because the content of the file is not known.
82 Importing will fail when such a preferred content expression is set.
83 This includes expressions containing "copies=", "metadata=", and other
84 things that depend on the key. Preferred content expressions containing
85 "include=", "exclude=" "smallerthan=", "largerthan=" will work.
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88 When run with a path, git annex import moves files from somewhere out‐
89 side the git working copy, and adds them to the annex.
90 This is a legacy interface. It is still supported, but please consider
92 switching to importing from a directory special remote instead, using
93 the interface documented above.
94 Individual files to import can be specified. If a directory is speci‐
96 fied, the entire directory is imported.
97 git annex import /media/camera/DCIM/*
99 When importing files, there's a possibility of importing a duplicate of
101 a file that is already known to git-annex -- its content is either
102 present in the local repository already, or git-annex knows of another
103 repository that contains it, or it was present in the annex before but
104 has been removed now.
105 By default, importing a duplicate of a known file will result in a new
107 filename being added to the repository, so the duplicate file is
108 present in the repository twice. (With all checksumming backends,
109 including the default SHA256E, only one copy of the data will be
110 stored.)
111 Several options can be used to adjust handling of duplicate files, see
113 --duplicate, --deduplicate, --skip-duplicates, --clean-duplicates, and
114 --reinject-duplicates documentation below.
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117 --duplicate
118 Do not delete files from the import location.
120 Running with this option repeatedly can import the same files
122 into different git repositories, or branches, or different loca‐
123 tions in a git repository.
124 --deduplicate
126 Only import files that are not duplicates; duplicate files will
127 be deleted from the import location.
128 --skip-duplicates
130 Only import files that are not duplicates. Avoids deleting any
131 files from the import location.
132 --clean-duplicates
134 Does not import any files, but any files found in the import
135 location that are duplicates are deleted.
136 --reinject-duplicates
138 Imports files that are not duplicates. Files that are duplicates
139 have their content reinjected into the annex (similar to git-
140 annex-reinject(1)).
141 --force
143 Allow existing files to be overwritten by newly imported files.
144 Also, causes .gitignore to not take effect when adding files.
146 file matching options
148 Many of the git-annex-matching-options(1) can be used to specify
149 files to import.
150 git annex import /dir --include='*.png'
152 ## COMMON OPTIONS
154 --jobs=N -JN
156 Imports multiple files in parallel. This may be faster. For
157 example: -J4
158 Setting this to "cpus" will run one job per CPU core.
160 --json Enable JSON output. This is intended to be parsed by programs
162 that use git-annex. Each line of output is a JSON object.
163 --json-error-messages
165 Messages that would normally be output to standard error are
166 included in the json instead.
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169 Note that using --deduplicate or --clean-duplicates with the WORM back‐
170 end does not look at file content, but filename and mtime.
171 If annex.largefiles is configured, and does not match a file, git annex
173 import will add the non-large file directly to the git repository,
174 instead of to the annex.
175
177 git-annex(1)
178 git-annex-add(1)
180 git-annex-export(1)
182 git-annex-preferred-content(1)
184
186 Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>
187 git-annex-import(1)