rclone

rclone File Transfer Skill

Setup Check (Always Run First)

Before any rclone operation, verify installation and configuration:

# Check if rclone is installed
command -v rclone >/dev/null 2>&1 && rclone version || echo "NOT INSTALLED"

# List configured remotes
rclone listremotes 2>/dev/null || echo "NO REMOTES CONFIGURED"

If rclone is NOT installed

Guide the user to install:

# macOS
brew install rclone

# Linux (static binary to ~/.local/bin)
d=$(mktemp -d -t rclone-install.XXXXXXXX) && mkdir -p ~/.local/bin && curl -sfL https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip -o "$d/rclone.zip" && unzip -q "$d/rclone.zip" -d "$d" && cp "$d"/rclone-*/rclone ~/.local/bin/ && chmod +x ~/.local/bin/rclone && rm -rf "$d"
# For arm64: replace amd64 with arm64 in the URL above

If NO remotes are configured

Walk the user through interactive configuration:

rclone config

Common provider setup 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 (opens browser) | | Dropbox | dropbox | OAuth flow (opens browser) |

Example: 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

Example: 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

Upload single file

rclone copy /path/to/file.mp4 remote:bucket/path/ --progress

Upload directory

rclone copy /path/to/folder remote:bucket/folder/ --progress

Sync directory (mirror, deletes removed files)

rclone sync /local/path remote:bucket/path/ --progress

List remote contents

rclone ls remote:bucket/
rclone lsd remote:bucket/  # directories only

Check what would be transferred (dry run)

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 (default 4) | | --bwlimit=RATE | Bandwidth limit (e.g., 10M) | | --checksum | Compare by checksum, not size/time | | --exclude=".tmp" | Exclude patterns | | --include=".mp4" | Include only matching | | --min-size=SIZE | Skip files smaller than SIZE | | --max-size=SIZE | Skip files larger than SIZE |

Large File Uploads

For videos and large files, use chunked uploads:

# S3 multipart upload (automatic for >200MB)
rclone copy large_video.mp4 remote:bucket/ --s3-chunk-size=64M --progress

# Resume interrupted transfers
rclone copy /path remote:bucket/ --progress --retries=5

Verify Upload

# Check file exists and matches
rclone check /local/file remote:bucket/file

# Get file info
rclone lsl remote:bucket/path/to/file

Troubleshooting

# Test connection
rclone lsd remote:

# Debug connection issues
rclone lsd remote: -vv

# Check config
rclone config show remote