.dropbox-ignore to prevent folders being uploaded to DropBox like git's .gitignore

[anjanesh]

Just like we have .gitignore for preventing files / folders to be uploaded to github, it would be nice to have the same for DropBox.

I have a workspace folder with tons of node_modules folders.

I want to upload the workspace folder to my DropBox but want to skip the node_modules folders.

Is there a way to achive this by making some .dropbox-ignore entry in my workspace's folders ?

That would be really helpful. Thanks.

[anjanesh · Accepted solution]

Got the answer here : https/help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files

[andresharpe]

This might be useful for others on Windows and Powershell with the git command line tool installed.

The script finds all .gitignore files in current folder and subfolder and sets the ignored files and folders to not upload to Dropbox.

Get-ChildItem -Recurse | `
    Where-Object { $_.Name -eq '.gitignore' } | `
    ForEach-Object { `
        Write-Host $_.DirectoryName; `
        Push-Location $_.DirectoryName; `
        git status --ignored --short | `
            Where-Object { $_.StartsWith('!! ') } | `
            ForEach-Object { `
                $ignore = $_.Split(' ')[1].Trim('/'); `
                Write-Host $ignore; `
                Set-Content -Path $ignore -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1 `
            }; `
        Pop-Location }

You can paste this into say `dropbox-sync-ignore.ps1` and store in your PATH and run it whenever you start or update a project in git.

[anjanesh]

DropBox should come up with an update that provides this out of the box. Right now running this

xattr -w com.dropbox.ignored 1 /Users/yourname/Dropbox/workspace/react-project/node_modules

for every node project manually is a pain.