-If you are deleting files on the destination and your partial-dir is
-inside the destination hierarchy, make sure you specify an exclude to
-prevent the partial file from being deleted (it could get deleted at the
-end of the transfer when using --delete-after, or at the beginning of the
-transfer when using --delete). E.g. "--exclude=.rsync-partial/".
+If the partial-dir value is not an absolute path, rsync will also add an
+--exclude of this value at the end of all your existing excludes. This
+will prevent partial-dir files from being transferred and also prevent the
+untimely deletion of partial-dir items on the receiving side. An example:
+the above --partial-dir option would add an "--exclude=.rsync-partial/"
+rule at the end of any other include/exclude rules. Note that if you are
+supplying your own include/exclude rules, you may need to manually insert a
+rule for this directory exclusion somewhere higher up in the list so that
+it has a high enough priority to be effective (e.g., if your rules specify
+a trailing --exclude=* rule, the auto-added rule will be ineffective).