Confused by --exclude-file behavior

Getting Help
1

Hello,

I have been using the --iexclude-file flag to tell restic to ignore the usual temporary files and folders. But for some folders, I want to exclude everything except specific sub-folders, like in Backup public ssh keys but do not backup private ssh keys - #3 by uli and as described in the docs :

# excludes.txt
.steam/*
!.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/*
!.steam/steam/userdata/*
Games/*
!Games/**/Documents/*
!Games/**/Saved Games/*
.local/share/flatpak/*
!.local/share/flatpak/overrides

But, when I check the snapshots, I have empty .steam and Games folders, while .local/share/flatpak/overrides isn’t and contains files. I have tried swapping the exclude and include lines, adding extra * to includes and removing the * at the end of excludes do not create empty folders.

I run backups using the following command:

restic backup $HOME \
  --exclude-caches \
  --iexclude-file excludes.txt
Version 
$ restic version
restic 0.18.0 compiled with go1.25rc2 X:nodwarf5 on linux/amd64
2

I had a similar issue. I include /Users/tom/Library/* but exclude some other Library sub directories, for example: !/Users/tom/Library/Preferences . I attemtped to include a subdirectory of !/Users/tom/Library/Preferences but it would always be empty. I gave up and add a pre-flight script that copies the desired sub-directory into a another included path directory as the solution.