Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync

[Tom_M]

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

[Emma]

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.

[ChrisC_]

Can't wait for this to work like others are asking for. A simple ignores file to prevent dropbox from ever touching files in these folders. 

[nicc777]

How is this not implemented yet? Do the Dropbox guys even read these suggestions?

[jamescorden]

I can't believe dropbox STILL hasn't implemented this in 7 years. Absolutely absurd. Symlinks are completely unnecessary for a service that millions of developers use. 

I hadn't opened the Dropbox app on my computer for about a week because I was using a limited hotspot while traveling. I come back and being the syncing process on my home network and it's trying to upload 300k+ files (nearly 3GB of primarily node modules), and it's estimated time is 5+ hours ??? Are you kidding me?

[Glenn M.14]

IMO, just having a check box to sync/not sync would be great. I share folders with others, for awhile, and then don’t need to, but can’t Delete. Be nice to step out of the Sync loop.

[Pepsimax750]

Christopher N.1, you recommend storing the files outside of the Dropbox folder; this is exactly what I want to do, but every time I attach an external drive or card reader to my pc, the files automatically synch to DB, so how do you pre-set a folder to not synch to DB?  It is sort of the reverse of synching, I want the files on PC, not the cloud.  Had a similar issue with OneDrive; 1Tb hard drive and 20gb OneDrive account.  When OneDrive was full (with files I didn't want there) I cleared some space and lost years of photos from my hard drive.  I'm terrified of it happening again, how do you protect files on (multiple) hard drives from the capricious whims of these cloud accounts?  I don't want or need to subscribe to an infinite amount of cloud storage, but sometimes it feels like these apps are just a legitimised form of ransomware; counter-intuitive and designed to put your data in peril unless you cough-up for the paid service.

[MagesticStumblingBear]

The following idea have already been suggested in the post below :

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Ignore-folder-without-selective-sync/idi-p/5926

However, it hasn't been implemented because the author suggested other solutions that doesn't solve my problem.

TL;DR : I would like to have a list of pattern that dropbox sync will ignore, no matter what.

Context : I like the idea of having my file backed up without even thinking about it using dropbox. However, during my work, I frequently create, edit and/or delete files/folders during automatic procedures and dropbox oftenly make these procedures fail by opening these files/folder in blocking mode.

Idea : Mimic the .gitignore method to add a list of pattern to exclude from sync anytime, so files/folders that are dynamically created doesn't get busy from dropbox sync procedure and some dropbox server & storage load could be saved this way (it's a win-win situation).

I'm aware dropbox already implement a static ignore list using selective sync or rightclick -> online, but  1. this doesn't solve the issue for dynamically generated files/folders ; 2. this is way to much a hassle when you have a lot of them/ add a new one ; 3. At my current knowledge, this doesn't work for files.

[ZAGG]

The number of "file/folder in use" errors I get is absurd. I am at the point where I just turn of Dropbox entirely if I want to actually do any work.

Dropbox needs to allow file extensions to be excluded from sync, they need to allow certain files and subfolders to be excluded from sync. There needs to be an option to "only sync files greater than XXX minutes old" so my entire dropbox isn't filled with temp files that only ever existed for a few milliseconds.

Never try and do any 3D simulations with files in a dropbox folder, never render any video with files in Dropbox, never render 3d models with files in dropbox, never edit music with files in dropbox. All of these automated, time & computationally intensive processes with be stopped dead in their tracks by Dropbox.

[MagesticStumblingBear]

Hi Zagg,

You suggestion : "only sync files greater than XXX minutes old" is really interesting as well.

I hope some dropbox executives end up reading this post eventually, these features would be a great addition to dropbox.

[condougan]

100% need this feature. 

[Glenn M.14]

Selective Sync, or the ability to choose what syncs, or not is a feature that has been requested for several years. 

Since it has not been implemented, I have to believe it’s because they make more money when people upgrade because their box is full.

Definitely not interested in their customers. I’ve my eye out for other, more customer responsive solutions, like iCloud, Google Drive, and the like.

Sorry Dropbox, you get a Thumbs Down for customer service.