apache - Redirect site with .htaccess but exclude one folder

Question

I want to 301 redirect an entire website, but exclude everything in a folder called /uploads which exists in the /root directory.

I have googled for this, but didn't come up with anything, or I didn't think what I saw was right.

Can we crack this?

Answer 1

Try this mod_rewrite rule:

RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule !^uploads($|/) http://example.com%{REQUEST_URI} [L,R=301]

This rule does match any URL path that does not begin with either /uploads or /uploads/ (leading / is missing in the pattern due to the path prefix removal when used in .htaccess files) and redirects the request to the corresponding path at example.com.