Cut the Clutter: Ignore Files Feature is now live

Oh Jesus ... that sounds like a pretty big bug. Maybe I'll just not use a Mac.

I tested a bunch of scenarios, and this might sound a bit weird, but here’s what I’m seeing:

If I set up rules.dropboxignore correctly on my windows and confirm it’s working, then after an immediate restart it still works fine. Files that were already on the local machine and supposed to be ignored stay local and don’t upload, and any new files I add that match the ignore list also don’t upload.

But if I shut down the windows PC, then switch to a mac and use dropbox there for a while (the Mac also has ignore rules set, and it does not upload any files from the windows ignore list), and then come back to windows — the ignore rules stop working after boot. Local files that should be ignored start uploading, and new files that should be ignored also upload.

At that point, the only fix is to open rules.dropboxignore, make an edit, and save it again. After that, the rules start working normally on windows.

PS: The mac side is always fine.

Thanks for the update. If you delete these files with the rule still intact, do they re-upload after rebooting the machine if they are recreated?

This section of the article might help explain why the files are being re-uploaded.

HelloJay​, this happens with any ignored file if it’s in the Dropbox folder before shutdown, after reboot Dropbox starts syncing it to the cloud.

The feature is incredibly flaky and only works some of the time. It appears to regularly forget about the rules file and attempt syncing 100k+ files anyway. It also loves to lock files in the process which causes all sorts of build failures.

/Projects/**/.idea
/Projects/**/Cargo.lock
/Projects/**/target
/Projects/**/.venv
/Projects/**/node_modules

I never signed up for a beta so I guess this has been rolled out to everyone now? Amazing either way. Been waiting/hoping for this ever since I started using Dropbox 😅

Ref. the reply here: Cut the Clutter: Ignore Files Feature is now live | The Dropbox Community

Is this very rigid at the moment? Why must it be done in that exact order to work? I'm asking because I came here ready to complain this feature absolutely did not work at all, only to actually manage to get it working using the exact steps listed there. I promise I tried this at least 5 times before coming here. I have no idea what I did differently, but most of my attempts involved editing the ignore file while Dropbox was either not running or syncing was paused, because I thought that would be the correct approach. But no matter how many times I tried restart Dropbox or my computer or deleting the folders it did not work.

So apparently you MUST have Dropbox running and syncing enabled while making changes to the file for it to work?

1. And even though the ignoring seems to work as expected now Dropbox still immediately lists thousands of files as syncing every time I start a new project (Unity project with all cached/temporary folders set to be ignored). Why is that? Hovering over the tray icon seems to indicate it's not actually syncing (uploading/download), only indexing? It must do that part even though the folders are ignored?
2. And previously I had always set Dropbox to pause syncing while I had a Unity project open because it could cause problems with the Unity editor while it was running, and Dropbox was never able to sync the 2 "lock files" while the project was open anyway and it was annoying to constantly see the sync icon never go away. I see that last part has not changed, even though the lock files are inside a folder that is correctly being ignored. Is that the same reason as above? It's not actually trying to sync them, but just index them?

Either way I'll probably still pause syncing while I work inside Unity just to be save, but it's nice to finally have a single general file that automatically ignores all files/folders I want.

Hi jshan, is it only occurring for that specific file, or other files as well that you've added to the ignore list?

I’m trying to use the automatic ignore feature on Windows.

I’ve set up rules in rules.dropboxignore, and it works right after I save it — for example, if I exclude main.pdf, it stays on my PC and doesn’t sync to the cloud.

But after I reboot my PC and dropbox starts again, main.pdf gets uploaded/synced to the cloud anyway. The only way I can fix it is to manually delete the file from Dropbox, edit 'rules.dropboxignore' again, and then put the file back — then it stops syncing.

Any tips to make the ignore rule persist after a restart?

(Setup: Windows 11 + latest dropbox beta version.)

No worries, glad to have helped out!

The article does state the differences between this and the .gitignore files, namely how it works, further down the article here, so it's worth checking that part out as well.

Thanks!