diff --git a/src/selective.d b/src/selective.d
index 80621498..829c3267 100644
--- a/src/selective.d
+++ b/src/selective.d
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ final class SelectiveSync
 	// config sync_list file handling
 	bool isPathExcluded(string path)
 	{
-		return .isPathExcluded(path, paths);
+		return .isPathExcluded(path, paths) || .isPathMatched(path, mask);
 	}
 }
 
@@ -67,6 +67,24 @@ private bool isPathExcluded(string path, string[] allowedPaths)
 	return true;
 }
 
+// test if the given path is matched by the regex expression.
+// recursively test up the tree.
+private bool isPathMatched(string path, Regex!char mask) {
+	path = buildNormalizedPath(path);
+	auto paths = pathSplitter(path);
+
+	string prefix = "";
+	foreach(base; paths) {
+		prefix ~= base;
+		if (!path.matchFirst(mask).empty) {
+			// the given path matches something which we should skip
+			return true;
+		}
+		prefix ~= dirSeparator;
+	}
+	return false;
+}
+
 unittest
 {
 	assert(isPathExcluded("Documents2", ["Documents"]));
diff --git a/src/util.d b/src/util.d
index 1259d98d..73d73c1e 100644
--- a/src/util.d
+++ b/src/util.d
@@ -99,7 +99,13 @@ Regex!char wild2regex(const(char)[] pattern)
 			break;
 		case '+':
 			str ~= "\\+";
+			break;
+		case ' ':
+			str ~= "\\s+";
 			break;	
+		case '/':
+			str ~= "\\/";
+			break;
 		default:
 			str ~= c;
 			break;