Very simple, but I always seem to forget the format: tar -cvvf name.tar dir/ –exclude dir_to_exclude directory You actually need to use the full path and sometimes swap the order: tar -cvf name.tar –exclude “/full/path/dir/exclude_this” /full/path/dir/ Here’s a couple more tar commands for good measure: tar -cvvf file.tar file.txt (tar file) tar -cvvf file.tar home/ [...]