Chronosync rules for excluding backup

[macstatic]

I use Chronosync in addition to Time Machine for backing up my files, but I'm having trouble understanding how to set up rules. Here's what i want to do:

I regularly back up my Adobe Lightroom catalog files, but I don't want Chronosync to do this when Lightroom is running (as its catalog might be updated/changed while the backup process is running). Luckily, Lightroom creates two files while running with the following extensions: "lrcat.lock" and "lrcat-journal" (they both disappear whenever Lightroom has been quit), so I figured I'd set up a couple of rules, but for some reason Chronosync still backs up the files.

In addition I set up a filter for skipping some other files (image previews etc.). What am I doing wrong?
Here's a screenshot of my rules settings:

 

[TonyK]

Thinking out loud as my own Chronosync is working and can't test this just yet.

create a new backup just for this. in the rules for the ingored files, put the lock file and the LR library file and use an AND condition. It would ignore the files IF both files exist.

The use the Data container and create a backup that includes both your regular, which will exclude the LR library at all times and the 2nd backup with the library included if there is no lock file.

Does this make sense?

 

[macstatic]

Yes, I think it does, but I think I need to understand the concepts a little better first.
Is my following assumptions correct in Chronosync:

"Scan files if these conditions are met:"
I believe this means that Chronosync will perform a backup as long as those conditions are met.
If the conditions aren't met I assume Chronosync won't backup, but stop.

"Ignore files if these conditions are met:"
I believe this mean that Chronosync will NOT do a backup if the conditions here are met.
If they're not met Chronosync will go ahead with the backup


Actually I think I might have messed up here as my "Ignore files..." criteria isn't about determining to back up or not, but I want to have the entire backup document ignore specific files. For instance, I never want to back up the Lightroom preview files (Previews.lrdata and Smart previews.lrdata extensions). I could of course always right-click on said files in the Chronosync "Analyze" section, telling them to be ignored, but I figure a general filter would be more practical in case I create a new Lightroom catalog or move things around. How do I do this in Chronosync?

Oh, I asked around and got confirmed that only a file with the "lrcat.lock" extension is always used to show that a Lightroom catalog is in use, so I can skip "lrcat-journal" for this rule. In other words: if Chronosync sees a file with the ending "lrcat.lock" it will skip the backup.


I'm actually working on a two-part backup strategy for my Lightroom catalogs using a Chronosync container:

Document #1: back up all current Lightroom catalogs (if there's no "lrcat.lock" file alongside them). Skip the preview and other files which aren't essential

Document #2: back up all the Lightroom backup catalog files (ZIP compressed, in a dated folder). Again skip the preview files etc. I also want to add a script here which deletes old Lightroom backup files from the source (original) drive (not the backup drive).

 

[TonyK]

For me, I close down all applications to keep things clean. So personally this has never been an issue.