Copy specified files

A simple example

rsync -av  --include={file1,file2} --exclude="*" source_directory destination_directory

1. It is not "includes" and it cannot be "{file1,file2}". Double quotation mark means patterns in rsync, and hence it should be exclude="*" and exclude=* does not work.
2. You must use exclude="*", include first, and exclude second. It will copy all the files under the source director, not only the specified file1 and file2, if you leave out exclude"*".

The names of files in a text file

If the filenames, such as file1, file2, etc., is stored in a text file like "filenames.text":

file1
file2
file3
file4

Note that it must be one filename in one single line. If you filename.txt reads:

file1 file2 file3 file4

Filenames are separated by spaces. You must modify it to make it one line for one filename. You can use tr command:

tr -s ' ' '\n' < filenames.txt > filenames1.txt
mv filenames1.txt filenames.txt

"-s" means "squeeze" and it will replace multiple spaces by one single break line symbol. Similarly, if your filenames file is separated by tab:

tr -s '\t' '\n' < filenames.txt > filenames1.txt
mv filenames1.txt filenames.txt

Finally, use rsync like the following example:

rsync -av --files-from=filenames.txt source_directory destination_directory