NAME

       git-annex-import - import files from a special remote

SYNOPSIS

       git annex import --from remote branch[:subdir] | [path ...]

DESCRIPTION

       This  command  is  a  way to import a tree of files from elsewhere into your git-annex repository. It can
       import files from a git-annex special remote, or from a directory.

IMPORTING FROM A SPECIAL REMOTE

       Importing from a special remote first downloads or hashes all new content from it, and then constructs  a
       git  commit  that  reflects  files  that have changed on the special remote since the last time git-annex
       looked at it.  Merging that commit into your repository will update it to reflect  changes  made  on  the
       special remote.

       This  way, something can be using the special remote for file storage, adding files, modifying files, and
       deleting files, and you can track those changes using git-annex.

       You can combine using git annex import to fetch changes from a special remote with git  annex  export  to
       send your local changes to the special remote.

       You  can  only import from special remotes that were configured with importtree=yes when set up with git-
       annex-initremote(1). Only some kinds of special remotes will let you configure them this way.  A  perhaps
       non-exhaustive list is the directory, s3, and adb special remotes.

       To  import from a special remote, you must specify the name of a branch.  A corresponding remote tracking
       branch will be updated by git annex import.  After that point, it's the same as if  you  had  run  a  git
       fetch from a regular git remote; you can merge the changes into your currently checked out branch.

       For example:

        git annex import master --from myremote
        git annex merge myremote/master

       You could just as well use git merge myremote/master as the second step, but using git-annex merge avoids
       a  couple  of gotchas. When using adjusted branches, it adjusts the branch before merging from it. And it
       avoids the merge failing on the first merge from an import due to unrelated histories.

       If you do use git merge, you can pass --allow-unrelated-histories the first time you git  merge  from  an
       import.  Think of this as the remote being a separate git repository with its own files. If you first git
       annex export files to a remote, and then git annex import from it, you won't need that option.

       You can import into a subdirectory, using the "branch:subdir" syntax.  For  example,  if  "camera"  is  a
       special  remote  that  accesses  a camera, and you want to import those into the photos directory, rather
       than to the root of your repository:

        git annex import master:photos --from camera
        git merge camera/master

       The git annex sync --content command (and the git-annex assistant) can also be  used  to  import  from  a
       special  remote.  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

       Any files that are gitignored will not be included in the import, but will be left on the remote.

       When the special remote has a preferred content expression set by git-annex-wanted(1), it will be honored
       when importing from it.  Files that are not preferred content of the remote will not be imported from it,
       but will be left on the remote.

       However, preferred content expressions that relate to the key can't be matched  when  importing,  because
       the  content  of  the  file is not known. Importing will fail when such a preferred content expression is
       set. This includes expressions containing "copies=", "metadata=", and other things  that  depend  on  the
       key.  Preferred  content expressions containing "include=", "exclude=" "smallerthan=", "largerthan=" will
       work.

       Things in the expression like "include=" match relative to the top of the tree of files  on  the  remote,
       even when importing into a subdirectory.

OPTIONS FOR IMPORTING FROM A SPECIAL REMOTE

       --content, --no-content

              Controls whether annexed content is downloaded from the special remote.

              The default is to download content into the git-annex repository.

              With  --no-content,  git-annex keys are generated from information provided by the special remote,
              without downloading it. Commands like git-annex get can  later  be  used  to  download  files,  as
              desired.  The --no-content option is not supported by all special remotes.

IMPORTING FROM A DIRECTORY

       When  run  with a path, git annex import **moves** files from somewhere outside the git working copy, and
       adds them to the annex. In contrast to importing from a special  directory  remote,  imported  files  are
       **deleted from the given path**.

       This  is  a  legacy  interface.  It is still supported, but please consider switching to importing from a
       directory special remote instead, using the interface documented above.

       Individual files to import can be specified. If  a  directory  is  specified,  the  entire  directory  is
       imported. Please note that the following instruction will **delete all files from the source directory**.

        git annex import /media/camera/DCIM/*

       When  importing  files, there's a possibility of importing a duplicate of a file that is already known to
       git-annex -- its content is either present in the local repository already, or git-annex knows of another
       repository that contains it, or it was present in the annex before but has been removed now.

       By default, importing a duplicate of a known file will result in  a  new  filename  being  added  to  the
       repository,  so  the  duplicate file is present in the repository twice. (With all checksumming backends,
       including the default SHA256E, only one copy of the data will be stored.)

       Several options can be used to adjust  handling  of  duplicate  files,  see  --duplicate,  --deduplicate,
       --skip-duplicates, --clean-duplicates, and --reinject-duplicates documentation below.

OPTIONS FOR IMPORTING FROM A DIRECTORY

       --duplicate

              Do not delete files from the import location.

              Running  with this option repeatedly can import the same files into different git repositories, or
              branches, or different locations in a git repository.

       --deduplicate
              Only import files that are not duplicates;  duplicate  files  will  be  deleted  from  the  import
              location.

       --skip-duplicates
              Only import files that are not duplicates. Avoids deleting any files from the import location.

       --clean-duplicates
              Does  not  import  any  files,  but any files found in the import location that are duplicates are
              deleted.

       --reinject-duplicates
              Imports files that are not duplicates. Files that are duplicates  have  their  content  reinjected
              into the annex (similar to git-annex-reinject(1)).

       --force
              Allow existing files to be overwritten by newly imported files.

              Also, causes .gitignore to not take effect when adding files.

       file matching options
              Many of the git-annex-matching-options(1) can be used to specify files to import.

                    git annex import /dir --include='*.png'

              ## COMMON OPTIONS

       --jobs=N -JN
              Imports multiple files in parallel. This may be faster.  For example: -J4

              Setting this to "cpus" will run one job per CPU core.

       --no-check-gitignore
              Add gitignored files.

       --json Enable  JSON  output.  This  is intended to be parsed by programs that use git-annex. Each line of
              output is a JSON object.

       --json-progress
              Include progress objects in JSON output.

       --json-error-messages
              Messages that would normally be output to standard error are included in the json instead.

CAVEATS

       Note that using --deduplicate or --clean-duplicates with the WORM backend does not look at file  content,
       but filename and mtime.

       If  annex.largefiles  is  configured,  and does not match a file, git annex import will add the non-large
       file directly to the git repository, instead of to the annex.

SEE ALSO

       git-annex(1)

       git-annex-add(1)

       git-annex-export(1)

       git-annex-preferred-content(1)

AUTHOR

       Joey Hess <id@joeyh.name>

                                                                                             git-annex-import(1)