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)
mkdir -p ~/.local/bin && curl -sfL https://downloads.rclone.org/rclone-current-linux-amd64.zip -o /tmp/rclone.zip && unzip -q /tmp/rclone.zip -d /tmp && cp /tmp/rclone-*/rclone ~/.local/bin/ && chmod +x ~/.local/bin/rclone
# 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