7zip CLI include and exclude file lists

Question

I need to set up a backup with 7zip on a windows server 2012 R2. I have a list of files I want to include and a list of files I want to exclude.

include_list :

\\remoteServer\App1
\\remoteServer\App2
\\remoteServer\App3

exclude_list :

\\remoteServer\App1\folder\file1
\\remoteServer\App1\folder\file2
\\remoteServer\App1\folder\file3
\\remoteServer\App2\folder\file1
\\remoteServer\App2\folder\file2
\\remoteServer\App2\folder\file3

The command I'm using :

7z.exe a -mx9 -tzip save.zip -ir@%include_list% -x@%Exclude_list%

This creates the archive just fine. But it doesn't take into account the exclusion list. No errors are shown.
I need to exclude files because some of them are locked database files, and they generate an errorlevel 1 exit code that I want to get rid of.

Thank you.

Answer 1

I think you need to add the an "!" point between "-x" and variable like this '-x!%Eclude_list%'.

Answer 2

It's an old post but I had the same issue today and wanted to share the solution. 7zips logic for excluding files is weird:

You have to specify relative paths, starting at the last subdirectory of a specified include path.

For example, if you want to archive everything in "c:\sub1\sub2" except "bad.txt", you would have to exclude "sub2\bad.txt".

In your example, the exclude filelist would have to look like this:

App1\folder\file1
App1\folder\file2
App1\folder\file3
App2\folder\file1
App2\folder\file2
App2\folder\file3

P.S. the reason might be, that the exclude paths relate to the directory structure of the created archive and not the source file system