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Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync

Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync

Tom_M
Helpful | Level 6

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

Latest Update
Emma
Community Manager

Hi folks, 

 

Thanks for your feedback on this.
While ignored files delivers for some of the use cases here, I appreciate it does not for all. 
We'll be taking another review of this thread to isolate use cases for a .dropboxignore file feature in particular.

I've updated the status and we'll take this to the product team.
As a side note, it would be helpful for us if you could outline the gap between what ignored files offers, and what a .dropboxignore file feature would add to your workflows.

 

Thank you.

Status changed to: Investigating
973 Comments
rochapablo
New member | Level 2

+1

paradis
Explorer | Level 3

+1

Alexandr M.
New member | Level 2
jeppef
Explorer | Level 4

+1
I am also close to switching to another service. Really likes dropbox - but the enourmous amont of thrash that is constantly syncing is driving me mad. And no - the selective sync is not a real alternative to an ignorefile.

wangli1426
New member | Level 2

+1 .dropboxignore is a good idea

jeppef
Explorer | Level 4

 +1

I dont want to leave dropbox. Really like it. But as the amount of "thrash" grows, dropbox is getting very slow. We need a way to keep generic and redownload-able stuff like ./node_modules out of dropbox.

Eric M.13
Helpful | Level 6

 This is even more necessary with shared folders. Anytime any shared folder I have gets a new project (Java/Rails/Node) my computer is nearly unusable for a period of time with Dropbox indexing tens of thousands of files and short of going into the settings on each of my computers and unchecking selective sync for node_modules and related folders, there's nothing I can do. So frustrating.

reima000
New member | Level 2

+1

wwwiz
Helpful | Level 6

It's crazy that this issue with 26K Views 550 Comments 735 Votes has no definitive answer or solution after 2 years, 6 months, 9 days!! Should we assume that after 1,000 days at the top post - that this just isn't a priority for Dropbox? Even if the answer is "no" from Dropbox it would be nice to have them take a position. Otherwise, this just serves as a 2 1/2 year venting session which doesn't help anybody.

 

Let's try and think through why this isn't a feature on Dropbox.com. I assume it has to do with performance :white_check_mark:.

 

Probably the same reason the 2nd most popular post (calculating folder sizes) also isn't resolved. If you have ever tried to calculate folder sizes using Dropbox desktop (macos > list view > finder > show view options >[x] calculate all sizes) you know it takes processor time if the folders are large - and these are local computer files. I can't imagine what that would take on dropbox.com to count and calculate constantly.

 

Maybe adding patterns (like .gitignore) to dropbox.com would just slow it down too much. You might remember back before smart sync when it could take days to sync new users if you had 100's of GB's of files. Dropbox had the brilliant idea of 'hey lets just index the folder names and files instead" and now there isn't really a syncing lag issue (at least with me anyway). So why can't they just add a .gitignore to the selective sync indexing? 

I don't know but let's guess some reasons to why having a dropbox.com/share/ignore page isn't happening:

 

Possible Answers...?

 

1. It will slow down dropbox.com because it doesn't have to check which files are being uploaded it just has to check where they are uploaded. It only checks file extensions when you try to preview I prob.

2. That is a development feature (most personal/biz users don't sync node_modules) and so we will add it dropbox for linux. So on linux desktop instead of excluding a directory like this for every project:

dropbox exclude add ~/Dropbox/Project/node_modules

 

You can add a wildcard to the dropbox like:

dropbox exclude add node_modules/

3. It will break Extended Version History & Comments feature because how will users be able to restore files that were .ignored after then were added? How do we notify people that have commented on a now-.ignored file or folder?

4. Do it with the API using selective sync. Dropbox only syncs selected files so just programmatically uncheck any project with node_modules/ folder via the API. As soon as we get to that feature

 

I can't think of any other possible issues with implementing .gitignore.  I'm sure there must be some very good reasons for Dropbox not doing this, I just wish I knew what they were.

 

mehdi g.1
Explorer | Level 3

@Tom M. wrote:

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


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