Exclude directories

Hello,

I have a multisite install and have Premium installed but I have particular requirements I’d like to check on here.

In my multisite install, I have several sites that are no longer being updated or changed. I would like to exclude the directories containing these sites’ images from the “regular” backup to reduce the “weight” of the backup.

My first step was to complete a full backup of everything to S3 and then I copied those files to a different location for safekeeping (so not to remove these due to the retention rules).

To exclude the older directories, then, from my research I see there are two possible methods.

First option would be to add these directories to the exclude list (which by default in my install includes “backup*,*backups,backwpup*,wp-clone,snapshots”. I’m not sure of the syntax – if I want to exclude the folder at wp-content/uploads/sites/3/ and everything inside should be exclude list then read “backup*,*backups,backwpup*,wp-clone,snapshots,wp-content/uploads/sites/3/*” or some other syntax?

The second option seems to be to include a file called “.donotbackup” in each of the folders I wanted to exclude. This is from a message in 2014 and I want to confirm that this is still a valid option.

Suggestions on the best choice are welcome. I think the first option is better, because if I ever wanted to do another complete backup, I would be able to just adjust the exclude list in the interface rather than go to each of the folders and rename/delete that file.