NAME

       git-annex-export - export content to a remote

SYNOPSIS

       git annex export treeish --to remote

DESCRIPTION

       Use this command to export a tree of files from a git-annex repository.

       Normally files are stored on a git-annex special remote named by their keys. That is great
       for reliable data storage, but your filenames are obscured. Exporting replicates the  tree
       to the special remote as-is.

       Mixing  key/value  storage  and  exports  in the same remote would be a mess and so is not
       allowed. You have to configure a special remote with exporttree=yes when initially setting
       it up with git-annex-initremote(1).

       The  treeish  to  export  can  be the name of a git branch, or a tag, or any other treeish
       accepted by git, including eg master:subdir to only export a subdirectory from a branch.

       When the remote has a preferred content setting,  the  treeish  is  filtered  through  it,
       excluding files it does not want from being exported to it.

       Repeated  exports  are done efficiently, by diffing the old and new tree, and transferring
       only the changed files, and renaming files as necessary.

       Exports can be  interrupted  and  resumed.  However,  partially  uploaded  files  will  be
       re-started from the beginning in most cases.

       Once  content  has  been  exported  to  a remote, commands like git annex get can download
       content from there the same as from other remotes. However,  since  an  export  is  not  a
       key/value  store,  git-annex  has  to  do  more verification of content downloaded from an
       export. Some types of keys, that are not based on checksums, cannot be downloaded from  an
       export.  And, git-annex will never trust an export to retain the content of a key.

       However,  some special remotes, notably S3, support keeping track of old versions of files
       stored in them. If a special remote is set up to do that, it can be used  as  a  key/value
       store  and the limitations in the above paragraph do not apply. Note that dropping content
       from such a remote is not supported. See individual  special  remotes'  documentation  for
       details of how to enable such versioning.

       The  git  annex  sync  --content command (and the git-annex assistant) can also be used to
       export a branch to a special remote, updating the special remote whenever  the  branch  is
       changed.   To do this, you need to configure "remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch" to tell
       it what branch to track.  For example:

        git config remote.myremote.annex-tracking-branch master
        git annex sync --content

       You can combine using git annex export to send changes to a special remote with git  annex
       import  to  fetch changes from a special remote.  When a file on a special remote has been
       modified by software other than git-annex, exporting to it will not overwrite the modified
       file,  and  the  export will not succeed. You can resolve this conflict by using git annex
       import.

       (Some types of special remotes such as S3  with  versioning  may  instead  let  an  export
       overwrite  the modified file; then git annex import will create a sequence of commits that
       includes the modified file, so the overwritten modification is not lost.)

OPTIONS

       --to=remote

              Specify the special remote to export to.

       --tracking
              This is a deprecated way to set "remote.<name>.annex-tracking-branch".  Instead  of
              using this option, you should just set the git configuration yourself.

       --fast This  sets  up  an  export  of a tree, but avoids any expensive file uploads to the
              remote. You can later run git annex sync --content  to  upload  the  files  to  the
              export.

EXAMPLE

        git  annex initremote myremote type=directory directory=/mnt/myremote      exporttree=yes
       encryption=none
        git annex export master --to myremote

       After that, /mnt/myremote will contain the same tree of files as the master branch does.

        git mv myfile subdir/myfile
        git commit -m renamed
        git annex export master --to myremote

       That updates /mnt/myremote to reflect the renamed file.

        git annex export master:subdir --to myremote

       That updates /mnt/myremote, to contain only the files in the  "subdir"  directory  of  the
       master branch.

EXPORT CONFLICTS

       If  two  different  git-annex  repositories are both exporting different trees to the same
       special remote, it's possible for an export conflict to occur.  This  leaves  the  special
       remote  with some files from one tree, and some files from the other. Files in the special
       remote may have entirely the wrong content as well.

       It's not possible for git-annex to detect when making an export will result in  an  export
       conflict.  The  best  way  to  avoid  export  conflicts is to either only ever export to a
       special remote from a single repository, or to have a rule about the tree that you  export
       to  the  special  remote. For example, if you always export origin/master after pushing to
       origin, then an export conflict can't happen.

       An export conflict can only be detected after the two git repositories  that  produced  it
       get  back  in sync. Then the next time you run git annex export, it will detect the export
       conflict, and resolve it.

SEE ALSO

       git-annex(1)

       git-annex-initremote(1)

       git-annex-import(1)

       git-annex-sync(1)

       git-annex-preferred-content(1)

HISTORY

       The export command was introduced in git-annex version 6.20170925.

AUTHOR

       Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>

                                                                              git-annex-export(1)