How to manually stop sync of a folder, but still retain local copy?

[garrettgibbons]

I feel like this is some sort of paranoid gaslighting scenario, where you're trying to convince me that up is down and down is up.

For years and years and years, probably before you started working for Dropbox, Photographers have used Selective Sync exactly as I've described. You can google it and find tutorials, blog posts, videos, forum threads, etc..., where photographers have used Dropbox to sync a project file but not the data-heavy image previews that go alongside it.

The fact that you're not even interested in offering a way to accomplish this goal tells us a lot about what Dropbox has become.

[Здравко]

Hi @garrettgibbons, @Jay  and @Rich,

Seems you are talking for completely different things. Yes, "Selective Sync" feature involve removing unselected folder. Yes, seems the sync process has been blocked somehow and that have made wrong impression. Anyway, actual question, like in many other threads in the forum, is about filtering features! Yes, almost all Dropbox competitors (including pCloud, Mega and many others) provide such filter features, so temporary or other files outside basaic project structure (for any kind of projects) are let unsync, as have to be. Unfortunately, Dropbox application filters only files involved in Dropbox work database build, without any chance to adapt and/or add additional filter conditions. Multiple times similar queries are placed in, but seems without enough Dropbox attention. Actual question name here is "FILTERS"! @Jay, @Rich that's what @garrettgibbons is asking for (expressed in other words) together with many other persons on different threads.

Hope this introduce additional clarity what's going word about.

[Anivalp]

Just to add a second voice here because what @garrettgibbons is describing is correct, Dropbox has changed and broken the ability to use a lightroom catalog file across multiple computers but keep the catalog preview file (which has to be in the same folder) from syncing online and therefore syncing to multiple computers. As @garrettgibbons said, the previous behaviour was used by many photographers and there are many websites, videos, forums etc.. discussing how to sync the catalog file but keep the preview file in the same folder without it syncing to the cloud. It is therefore not a problem with a particular computer or user, but a fundamental change in how "Selective Sync" works. Would really appreciate it if Dropbox gave us back the ability to choose which files/folders on the local computer get synced to the cloud. At the moment with "Smart Sync" you can either choose files/folders as 'online only' or 'local', which is really better described as 'syncing with cloud'. There is no 'local only' option. 

[avingochea]

I've been using Dropbox to sync web development projects for years. I use selective sync to keep dropbox from syncing node_modules since it's over 100k files. I created the folder node_modules, set it to ignore the folder with selective sync and added it back to Dropbox after it was removed.

Last Thursday Dropbox uploaded ALL of the files. I deleted the folders again, and tried to get it back to how it was, but every time I add the folder node_modules back, it just changes the name to "node_modules (Selective Sync Conflict)" and uploads everything again. I want it to just ignore the folder.

What happened? How can I get it back to how it was? Did your latest update change the way selective sync works? I'm using Windows 10.

Edit: This post has the exact same issue, but they carried the conversation into emails so not sure what happened.

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Files-folders/Why-did-selective-sync-behavior-change/m-p/331121#M496... 

[Здравко]

Hi @avingochea,

As far as I know, when there are some files and/or folders with same name (case insensitive) - name conflict is guaranteed. This is not for last version only! If you want to ignore server version of particular folder (as you have described), just remove the server version, using web interface, before change anything in "Selective Sync".

Hope this helps.

[Jane]

Hey @avingochea, thanks or reaching out to the Dropbox Community for assistance referencing the previous conversation on the topic! 

As I had worked with the OP there, let me quickly update that the issue was resolved upon re-updating to the latest client Build, where this started working as expected again. 

If I may quickly follow-up from your description, I’d like to see if you’ve noticed that across devices or it’s a single device creating the conflicts. 

Please let us know whenever you have a minute! 

[avingochea]

Hey @Jane,

I'll have to get back to you tonight on whether it's only one computer causing the issues. I did, however, reinstall Dropbox on this computer this morning and the issues persisted. I downloaded the file from dropbox.com/downloading . Is there another place I should get the file from? Also, did he have to fresh install Dropbox?

[JWW87]

Hello,

I'm facing this exact same issue, both on Mac and (since today) on Windows. I have a node_modules folder excluded from sync. Before, this folder would have a little grey icon, so the contents would not be uploaded to Dropbox but would remain offline only. This behaviour seems to have changed. Now the folder is moved to the root of Dropbox and deleted from the original location.

This is a very frustrating bug. Folders excluded from sync should not be deleted or moved by Dropbox. Please fix this, so that excluded folders remain present locally, just ignored by Dropbox sync.

[Fiona]

Thanks for joining this dicussion! I will explain what happened here @JWW87.

You had a Selective Sync conflicts from what you are describing. Please read about this here: https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/sync-uploads/selective-sync-conflict

Your desktop application automatically fixed this issue since you don't have the gray icon anymore!  Seems like you are one of the users that have the fully updated version of the application.

However, if you want me to take a look at your events and account details, I will be more than happy to. Let me know! 

I can use your Community profile address to contact you via email. 

Thanks!

[Jane]

It was an update, however from our discussion I could see that he was adjusting his settings, so it looks like this did the trick for him. 

If I were in your shoes, I’d give the Offline installer a go, which you can find here→ (Stable Build 83.4.152). 

Please keep me posted on the results!