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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
gibbsy
Helpful | Level 5

For developers looking to exclude node_modules from db sync there is sort of a workaround.

 

Create an empty node_modules folder in your local directory and then go into selective sync and unsync the empty directory from your computer. Dropbox will remove it from your machine but keep the empty directory in the cloud. Then when you run 'npm i' db will ignore the new node_modules folder and the 100s of 1000s of files within.

 

A db_ignore config file would be much easier!

 

But hope that helps anyway.

insetavijit
New member | Level 2

please please please

make it for us . devlopers , coders 

even windows is going on that direction ( wsl ) and much more .

please , please , please 

jarfar
New member | Level 2

+1

gibbsy
Helpful | Level 5

Please could you add 'Unsync folder' to the contextual menu when right clicking on a folder?

Screen Shot 2018-03-21 at 17.21.12.png

tonicastillo
New member | Level 2

+1

Adrien L.
Explorer | Level 4

+1 !

Arne1
Explorer | Level 4

Seriously, why hasn't this been implemented yet? Is none of the DopBox product managers a developer who has the same issues like the users from the previous 61 pages? You would believe that a smaller and flexible company would listen to its users. 

Arthur l.9
New member | Level 2

Maybe They just don't like programmers.

Simple because programmers use too much CPU resource than other user even with a filter list. 

 

 

 

So If programmmer leaves, they are happy.

 

tochikuji
Explorer | Level 3

Even if they didn't like programmers/engineers, such ignoring feature reduces their traffic and computational resources clearly.

Programmers are desiring this (at least we are),  and they may use this correctly as they wish.

 

Anyway, I can't understand why they haven't implemented this yet and won't answer to us at all.

Didn't they notice us? Can you hear me?

Kaboom
New member | Level 2

+1

 

Something like how Tresorit does it.

 

[Ignore] //node_modules
[Ignore] //venv*
[Junk] //desktop.ini
[Junk] //Thumbs.db
[Junk] //.DS_Store

 

There you can just include the above in a ".tresorit/Filters/roaming.filter" file and voila problem solved. No more syncing 50.000+ useless files for every project.

 

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