Feedback on the new desktop app "ignore files" feature.

I will weigh in on this: Please add a .gitignore (or .dropboxignore) file that will instruct dropbox to ignore files and folders similar to GIT

DaphneAny possibility of an update on this feature?

The file locking and indexing headaches are really starting to become enough of a pain point that I'm considering cancelling my subscription and moving to another service.

Just to state the obvioius: The "solution" being beta tested, see https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files,  is completely inadequate.  Do we really need to type long mysterious shell commands to ignore files or directories? A far, far better solution would be simplistic wildcard filters on file names or directory names that can apply globally.

In addition, a *big* use for the feature is for large work files that are repeatedly created and deleted by programs such as Visual Studio or WinEdt and that cause problems because Dropbox briefly locks them.  There is no way to use this ad hoc command line solution on files that are being constantly created automatically by software such as Vusual Studio.

For anyone else who is sick of it and has the option, seafile handles this issue very elegantly. Wish I had made the change months ago.

Hey again everyone, thanks so much for sharing all your feedback on this with us here!

Just wanted to let you know that this has all been shared with the developers and we'll let you know as soon as possible in regarding any updates on this feature.

In the meantime, please feel free to send along any other feedback you have and I'll make sure to keep our devs updated too.

I hope you all have a great day and stay safe!

I use Dropbox together with Unity projects. Dropbox gives a lot of conflicts when the folders created by Unity "Library" and "Temp" are synchronized on the server.

Recently I found this article that solved this problem:
https://help.dropbox.com/en-US/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files

But, it would be great if you put a new option in "Selective Sync" through which we can ignore sync for some folders from dropbox. I wish I could choose a file/folder to be "Local Only" directly from Dropbox, without having to write some lines of "code" in PowerShell (to keep some folder "Local Only" .. not "Online Only").

This problem is common in those who use Dropbox with Unity projects.

this can do it by terminal. If there was a way to do it simple it will be fantastic!

Hi Daphne,

From the help page (https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files), it seems that you can right-click on a file/folder in the desktop app and click "Don’t sync to dropbox.com."

I'm running 99.4.501 (latest stable version as of 6/24/2020), but I don't see any such option for the files and folders that I right-clicked on. Was this help page updated prematurely?

I'm not a business user (which the help page says it doesn't work for yet).

Thanks!

Sigh... and if it wasnt bad enough... now this:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-files-folders/The-ignore-folder-feature-is-not-working/td-p/384678

It seems even if you do manage to set the folder on ignore, dropbox doesnt "really" ignore it, it just does not "upload/sync" it, but it still indexes it and tries to read/sync any files in it.

So say, if you have a folder called "GITHUB TESTS" and set it on ignore, then dump 750,000 files in there, to test something out, your dropbox will take 3-7 days or more to "index" them all, meanwhile blocking any meaningfull or important syncs from happening until its done

And if any of the files in there is an exe or dll, or anything that the OS locks, then good luck, because that file will cause dropbox to "hang" saying "unable to sync XX file, its in use" and hanging your entire queue until you unlock that file, also preventing any further files from syncing.

Soo.. were back to square one negative selective sync.. and the fact this issue has been known for 6 months snd has not been addressed even tho its probably a simple fix does not bring me any confort.

Cmon guys were trying to be loyal, but you are not helping us here... Dropbox keeps getting worse.. not better, its trying to become easier for "normal" people to use, while forgetting its the sys admins of the world that make the purchasing desicions, if i wanted it more "dumbified" id just switch to google drive, the only true "upgrade" to dropbox in the past 3 years was it doesnt take 3 days now to show all the files in selective sync but other than that you have added a ton of features that do not make this better.

Here in my office all my users keep complaining and asking why are we still hanging with dropbox and not moving to onedrive like "normal corporate people" and every time I keep defending dropbox because its a "real" advanced hard drive syncing service vs just a file/folder syncing service but every day it gets harder to defend it.

Were paying $1250 a month here, my users are angry, at some point the dam is going to break, its unsustainable, please help us help you, if you just "ignore" us for 6 months, and we just "ignore" them as well hoping someday you guys will fix it, I will be the one replaced and dropbox along with me in short order.

Just wanted to put this out there.

If we had never had this feature in the first place i would understand it, it wouldnt be a problem but since it was working fine before with selective sync remove and now it does not, my users here are up in arms, you cannot remove a service breaking feature for a user without providing a suitable replacement, or at least a workaround, its just bad customer care.

lll hold on as long as I can and hope you make a fix soon, but if it does not come soon enough i do think this will definitely be a deal breaker here for my users and they will force me to switch services, i know you hear this a thousand times here, but im just trying to state a fact, im not being melodramatic.

Thanks for reading all of this, i hope it explains a little bit why some of us are frustrated with this.

Regards,

As an avid daily dropbox user and sr. programmer, rely on dropbox to synchronize my website folders across all my work stations. While I could use git pulls to synchronize my code folder files, I have thousands of other assets that I want to be synced alongside my codebase. Froma general workflow perspective, dropbox is meeting all my needs and is fast and efficient at accomplishing this task, at least until you get down to downloaded packages. For the developers in the room, you'll know what I'm talking about. "node_modules" or any other package system like "bower_components".  When committing to git we use a .gitignore file to prevent these items from synching, I hope that dropbox will create a feature to support this. Now many people will say "they do, its called Selective Sync" however it doesn't work for 2 reasons. Firstly, I have to manually drill into each project folder to exclude the folder meaning that each new project I add to dropbox has to have a custom configuration.  and Secondly, even when I do engage this feature, dropbox just starts making its own folders calling them: 

• "node_modules conflict 1" 
• "node_modules conflict 2"
• "node_modules conflict 3"
• etc...

l humbly suggest dropbox create some sort of .gitignore system so I can globally exclude generated files regardless of where they are nested inside my dropbox.