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Tom_M
11 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Status:
Delivered
Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync
Please please please can you add a feature that allows folders to be excluded from the Dropbox account (on windows and mac). For sure I'm not the first person to request this, but I'm yet to find a good explanation of why it's not there. A quick google search reveals loads of people also looking for the same feature. I really like the workflow I have with dropbox, but it's getting to the point where I might switch providers in order to allow better selective sync.
I've seen hackish solutions using selective sync, 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"
Other than that, keep up the good work. Cheers.
Tom
Idea Status Update
We're launching a closed beta for Ignore Files feature, and we’d love your help testing it out.
1,036 Comments
- sgttwld6 years agoHelpful | Level 6
...interesting indeed. I guess no syncing service out there is flawless. I didnt experience dropbox syncing conflicts in a long time (back in the day when it launched I had it often, but not recently). It would be great if we could find out what conditions exactly cause the conflicts on different services, and whether or not they are reproducable or whether they result from unpredictable server issues.
- undegroundalien6 years agoExplorer | Level 4
> Dropbox and iCloud drive offers me this experience, which I got used to over the past years
Really? That hasn't been my experience at all with DropBox. Two successive saves on the save file will frequently create conflicted versions, even if the saves are not that fast, and apps that attempt to create "safe" disk writes (e.g. KeePassXC) will frequently fail until you disable that feature.
Here's a copy of my log folder with files being constantly deleted:
This is the result of a log file being written every 5 minutes. Even if 5 minutes pass, sometimes DropBox is just so hang up on synchronizing something, or maybe that file's change is still queued, that it'll create a conflicted version for you. This happens constantly on any file that can be written several times, and again, doesn't even have to be very fast.
I'm surprised you haven't ran into this. I've had this behavior in 3 different machines, both Windows and macOS ones.
- garronej6 years agoHelpful | Level 6
sgttwld realy ? I am surpised.
I work on a project that involve 1000+ files that are watched and transpiled on the fly ( typescrypt compile -> browserify -> uglify ) and on top of that my files are synced with resilio-sync. So far pCloud never betraid me and I have been running it on both osX and windows using low range computers...
On the other hand with dropbox I had the kind of issues you describe...
Thanks for the testimony anyway. I will report it here if I ever experience what you descibe. - sgttwld6 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Since most recent replies consist of positive feedback on pcloud, I quickly wanted to share why I switched back to iCloud drive (would be dropbox if I wasnt in the apple ecosystem) after trying pcloud for 3 days. First I was really liking the way it acts as a network drive but you can still select which local folders you want to sync.
After using it to sync my main working directories for some time I was shocked to find over 12 duplicates of the same file in one folder with a slightly different filename telling me about a conflict. Since I really wanted to make pcloud work, I contacted support and they told me:
> Conflicted files are possible when you are editing/saving files too fast and too often
> and the changes "outrun" the sync process. When you click on save, please make sure that
> there's a movement in the progress status bar and wait for it to finish.This is a dealbreaker to me, since I work with LaTeX (a typesetting language mostly for scientific writing) and often build a file multiple times in quick succession making small corrections to the source code. I my opinion, a syncing service should run in the background without me having to think about whether the files are in sync or not. I dont want to slow down in order to check whether the syncing kicked in or not. Dropbox and iCloud drive offers me this experience, which I got used to over the past years. pCloud seems a solid and lightweight approach, but needs some work until it can compete with the big boys, in my opinion.
- garronej6 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Thanks god I made the migration on my own therm to pCloud. It would have been enfuriating to have to stop everything I'm doing to do the migration.
Small report after 6 moth of usring pCloud, beyond the selective sync feature I am very hapy with the service overall much better in every single way than Dropbox. One thing to be noted tho is that altho the free plan let you restore a file to a previous state you will need a payed option ( ~35$/year ) to restore deleted file or folder ( but it's retroactive so you can buy the option only once you need it).
Their system of restoring files work differently than Dropbox's but it's better. Instead of seeing deleted files you can browse you folder as it was at a given date, like when you brose your git repo at a particular commit.A few other points:
-I love thow faster it is to sync and easy on the CPU it is compared to Dropbox.
-The android/iOS apps are also better.
-Your pCloud folder is mounted as a virtual drive that you can access via the network and use 0 space on your devices which is neat. You can chose what folder you want to be actually synced on your drive.
-They offer the same kind of sponsorship that let you unlock a free GB for every person you rally. So you can have a total of 20GB space with a free plan.
Come to think of it I will share my link there.
https://partner.pcloud.com/r/17788
Cheers - Ogilthorp6 years agoExplorer | Level 4
Takes half hour to move everything to another service. You'll be glad you did.
- Arne16 years agoExplorer | Level 4
Ok, so it seems like DropBox has removed the last workaround I had, using selective sync. As soon as I have that enabled for my node_modules folder, I can't create a local one anymore. Before the folder was ignored, now it will always get renamed immediately to somethink like node_modules (Selective sync conflict).
That's it, I'm out. Cancelled my premium plan today.
- miromannino6 years agoExplorer | Level 4sgttwld Ogilthorp same for me with selective sync. Just added a new folder inside node_modules (installed a new dependency), and Dropbox gets stuck forever with CPU 100% even if it seems like it's not uploading anything (because of the selective sync).
- maku776 years agoHelpful | Level 6
Not yet implemented???
- _tux6 years agoNew member | Level 2
2-3 days selective sync not work correctly ...
somebody have problems?
And I need the feature in the thread.
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