Rclone is an open-source utility that helps to sync files to cloud storage like Google Cloud Storage, Azure etc. Thus, Rclone install is an important step to migrate files between different object storage services.

As a part of our Server Management Services, we help our Customers with similar migration requests regularly.

Let us today discuss the possible steps to install rclone on various operating systems.

How to install rclone?

The first step in installing rclone is to download the exact binary file suitable for the system. We could download the file from its official site. Once you have the rclone zip file downloaded to your computer, follow the section below that matches your platform.

Rclone installation on Linux

Unzip utility is required to perform the installation in Linux. For Ubuntu or Debian systems, we can update the local package index and install unzip by typing:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install unzip

For CentOS or Fedora, we can install unzip by typing:

$ sudo yum install unzip

With unzip installed, navigate to the directory where you downloaded the rclone zip file using the cd command. Next, unzip the archive and move into the new directory:

$ unzip rclone*
$ cd rclone-v*

From here, we can copy the binary to the /usr/local/bin directory so that it is available system-wide:

$ sudo cp rclone /usr/local/bin

Finally, we can create the configuration directory and open up a configuration file to define the credentials for the spaces that we are about to sync:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/rclone
$ nano ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf

Install Rclone on macOS

If you are running macOS, begin by navigating in the terminal to the directory where you downloaded the rclone zip file using cd operation.

Next, unzip the file and move into the new directory level:

$ unzip -a rclone*
$ cd rclone-v*

Next, make sure the /usr/local/bin directory is available and then move the rclone binary inside:

$ sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
$ sudo cp rclone /usr/local/bin

Finally, we can create the configuration directory and open up a configuration file to define the credentials for the spaces:

$ mkdir -p ~/.config/rclone
$ nano ~/.config/rclone/rclone.conf

Install Rclone in Windows

In windows, first, navigate to the Downloads directory in the Windows File Explorer where the zip file is downloaded. Select the rclone zip file and right-click. In the context menu that appears, click Extract All.

Follow the prompts to extract the files from the zip archive.

The rclone.exe utility must be run from the command line. Open a new Command Prompt (the cmd.exe program) window by clicking the Windows button in the lower-left corner, typing cmd, and selecting Command Prompt.

Inside, navigate to the rclone path you extracted by typing:

C:\> cd "%HOMEPATH%\Downloads\rclone*\rclone*"

You will need to be in this directory whenever you want to use the rclone.exe command.

Next, we can create the configuration directory and open up a configuration file to define our Spaces credentials:

C:\> mkdir "%HOMEPATH%\.config\rclone"
C:\> notepad "%HOMEPATH%\.config\rclone\rclone.conf"

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Conclusion

In short, Rclone is an open-source utility that helps to sync files to cloud storage which is useful in migrating data between storage spaces. Today, we saw how our Support Engineers install it.