diff --git a/cmd/sync/sync.go b/cmd/sync/sync.go
index 4222ec6a6..f04a6ce0f 100644
--- a/cmd/sync/sync.go
+++ b/cmd/sync/sync.go
@@ -44,9 +44,11 @@ want to delete files from destination, use the
 
     rclone sync --interactive SOURCE remote:DESTINATION
 
-Note that files in the destination won't be deleted if there were any
-errors at any point.  Duplicate objects (files with the same name, on
-those providers that support it) are also not yet handled.
+Files in the destination won't be deleted if there were any errors at any
+point. Duplicate objects (files with the same name, on those providers that
+support it) are not yet handled. Files that are excluded won't be deleted
+unless |--delete-excluded| is used. Symlinks won't be transferred or
+deleted from local file systems unless |--links| is used.
 
 It is always the contents of the directory that is synced, not the
 directory itself. So when source:path is a directory, it's the contents of
diff --git a/docs/content/docs.md b/docs/content/docs.md
index b247c2dc7..de5b9590d 100644
--- a/docs/content/docs.md
+++ b/docs/content/docs.md
@@ -1687,7 +1687,8 @@ During rmdirs it will not remove root directory, even if it's empty.
 ### -l, --links
 
 Normally rclone will ignore symlinks or junction points (which behave
-like symlinks under Windows).
+like symlinks under Windows). Ignored files won't be copied, moved or
+deleted in a sync.
 
 If you supply this flag then rclone will copy symbolic links from any
 supported backend backend, and store them as text files, with a