Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync

I've ran several tests on mac and PC:

•  Selecting 'don't sync' via right click menu - confirmed. folder will remain on the machine executing the command and will dissapear from all others including the web app.
• Selecting the opposite via right click (sync to dropbox) menu - confirmed. The folder will reappear on the other computers and the web app. 

So the feature definitely isn't per machine in terms of sharing but can be run by anyone (which could be kind of dangerous i suppose).

Given its a very basic line of code in pwsh (PC) and terminal (Mac/Linux) there are a myriad of ways to trigger it as the OP mentioned would like. I have got the following to work:

• Executing commands via context menu (depending on your system, you may not have the command 'dont sync to dropbox' inside the dropbox context menu).
• Executing via system scheduler periodically and;
  • triggered upon launch of an app;
  • triggered by launch of an app AND presence of Folder.ignore file;
  • triggered by running shortcut of Folder.ignore
  • Setting Folder.ignore as environment variable DROPBOX_IGNORE_PATHS which could be shared with a team and provides a master list of all the folders currently in this state. could live on a server etc.
  • there are so many ways to trigger it on the Mac i won't waste anyones time writing it all down. 

• I

ah sorry I didn't realise we were talking about remote connections. the OP wrote:

but it would be great if this could be done in one of the following ways:
- global pattern matching eg "node_modules"
- a marker file in the directory like .dropboxignore
- a simple right click context menu "Ignore this folder"

To me, thats exactly what 'don't sync to dropbox' does.

To be clear then, are you saying that if I were to set a folder as 'don't sync to dropbox' and then on another computer create a new file inside that very same folder and hit save etc it actually will sync/upload to the DB because that command is per machine?

@projectdeliverypartners Dude you’re not using this at the level we are discussing. It’s not just handling one folder and you’re done. It’s accessing sync operations across several devices, through remote operations. As is, without an ignore file and just with using the ignore command, you have to manage each folder for each device separately.

The OP mixed up selective sync with ignore 10 years ago, and for some reason the admins keep merging this with other threads that more lucidly state the problem. It’s about ignoring a local folder across several devices, as they are being setup. That’s the whole point of a an .ignore file. Again, think about GitHub and why it has one. 

nicc777  the files don’t have to exist as it allows the use of wildcards so you could do all files of a type or partial name match if you knew what they would be or an enclosing folder “foldernme/*”. You would at a minimum have to know where the files are about to be created in the case where they are yet to be created. 

I’m not sure what could be more convenient and appropriate within this context as right click, don’t sync to Dropbox. It is not selective sync at all, selective sync lets you only download certain folders you specify and the rest are ‘hidden’ in the sense that they only are visible to you on the web/through a browser. That’s not what this command does. It removes that folder and anything in it from your Dropbox period. After you run it, go on line and have a look, that folder will be gone yet on your local computer it will be there, still contained within your Dropbox/…. Folder but it will not be syncing or uploading until you tell it to be running the oppose command. 

@projectdeliverypartners no that is not the functionality asked for by the OP, or I imagine most of the people in this thread as we have been discussing this for quite some time. What you are talking about is what the OP is referring to as select sync, and most of us are very well aware of it. It requires a whole process to be done on every device that you set up dropbox to sync on (now and in the future), and every folder/file that you want to not sync (again, now and in the future). The process with select sync is: sync dropbox, turn off dropbox, create the folder, use the select sync command on the folder to turn it off, add your files to the folder, turn on dropbox and resync. Not only is this mundane and sometimes unreasonable if dealing with a large number of devices and/or folders, but it is also not safe. If one folder on any device is not properly set to select sync then it will corrupt your entire sync across all devices and creates conflicts which must then each be cleaned up and the whole process repeated - for every device. This is why other services, such as github, have a .ignore file. 

Further, select sync, as is, creates other issues because it still goes into that folder and locally syncs everything which can create problems with specific files -- such as in here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Apps-and-Installations/Bug-quot-unable-to-sync-quot-a-file-that-is-in-an-ignored-folder/m-p/777269#M67577

projectdeliverypartnersFunctionally you could maybe make the argument... maybe...

However, a simple ignore file is just a lot more convenient, especially for developer folks. Especially since we can automatically let some workflow create it if we start a new project.

The supplied script you showed may work, but I guess the files have to exist. Some of these temporary directories are very dynamic with temporary files coming and going all the time, causing a lot of sync traffic, so my gut feel that it's not really what we as a community wanted.

Still useful for more basic use cases.

This feature does now exist (in my view), its the 'don't sync to dropbox' command. See my post here:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/forums/filteredbylabelpage/board-id/Musicforum-board/label-name/don't%20sync%20to%20dropbox

See my post here:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/forums/filteredbylabelpage/board-id/Musicforum-board/label-name/don't%20sync%20to%20dropbox

I do this with powershell on windows, haven't investigated on mac yet but thought this might help anyway.

re-bumping this because I am now seriously considering switching my distro over to another provider than Dropbox. It is just so unsustainable and unstable across multiple devices without this feature...