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.

[Stefano Valicch1]

I twitted a link of this post to Drew Houston directly. I wrote 'this 2 years old post is an example of why you are losing a lot of zero hour customers like me' then linked here. Feel free to do the same. Hope it can 'trigger a reaction' that is not coming from here.

[Jan P.12]

If I hear Dropbox support suggest "selective sync" one more time I'm gonna lose it (and lose all hope).
It makes it just so painfully obvious how little they care. I mean st least read the damn thread title! It seems there is just no chance for us to get past the barrier of "customer support" and their template answers.

In a last attempt to make things clear:
What selective sync is: Files on Dropbox cloud you don't want to sync to local.
What WE want: Local files that should not be synced to Dropbox cloud.

Dear Dropbox support and Dropbox support bots. Do not just "pass it on to the development team". Call your boss and have them call their boss and make him get someone from development to read this and reply. We want to know if this is ever going to be done and if yes when and if no we know it's time to start using alternatives. So everybody here can get back to working instead of worrying about their workflows.

[Johnny W.2]

Every time I see a response to this thread that isn't from someone at Dropbox (or IS someone from Dropbox giving an empty boilerplate answer) and I hate Dropbox that little bit more.

I suggest we give up trying to get Dropbox to treat us like customers they care about and instead use this thread to focus on helping each other: Let's continue to list Dropbox's competitors, along with their prices and all their pros and cons, in an attempt to find a decent alternative.

[Janice C.5]

Is there a Dropbox competitor which:

1. Has support for "exclude files", preferably with pattern matching.
2. Works with FreeBSD/FreeNAS.
3. Still supports Dropbox-style shared folders, sharing, and (most importantly) file requests?

Right now I only continue to use Dropbox for the reasons in item 3. I have to work around the first two lacking features at the moment.

[Ed]

Hey Mat,

I'm not a bot (I have a family too!). Perhaps a gif would help proving that? 🙂

(or maybe I'm in fact an advanced bot.. )

[Stefano Valicch1]

@Ray C.

You can try Mega.co.nz's MegaSync. It's installable on linux (I'm using on a Raspberry Pi), has pattern exclusion (not using files but on the web interface) and file sharing/collaboration too. And it's cheaper.

But... you are giving your files (private and/or work related) to this guy:

... which is maybe not what you can consider safe.

Your choice. Give it a spin. 50GB are free.

[Ed]

Quick update - I'm adding your recent posts to the feedback that I've already sent to our dev team before. I still don't have more info on Infinite as some have asked, so I don't know if that would help achieving the goals you're trying from this request. 

I'm also not suggesting Selective Sync as I'm aware most of you in this thread (if not all) are aware of this functionality already and if you're not using it, it's because it's not fitting your needs as it is.

In any case, I don't have a solid answer to this product request, so hence some 'vague' answers as some of you mentioned. 

I'll update this thread if I hear anything in that regard (both Infinite or this request). Going back to stealth mode now 🙂

[Stefano Valicch1]

Thank you for the update, Ed, but, as "cool" can be Infinite, it's not going to change our workflow.

This little hack, on the other hand, could simplify our life greatly and would:

• Avoid unnecessary syncs (saving cpu and bandwidth for us and Dropbox as well)
• Save us from "wrong sync" related issues like 64 bit libraries that "pops up" on a 32 bit computer on the other side of the world screwing our projects. I call them "doomsday syncs", BTW.
• Going through selective sync interface (that is, at least, sluggish and unreliable)

It would be a typical win/win situation if you guys implement it (your bandwidth would be saved too from unnecessary and dangerous syncs of millions of nested folders and files, that is very slow and cpu intensive)

Please "precedence" it, IMO at least. 

[Janice C.5]

I don't really think that I need safety, but I don't think they have a FreeBSD client, so I'd have to roll my own solution again.

Are you sure Mega is cheaper? It looks like it is more expensive to me. Dropbox is $8.25/TB/month and Mega is 9.99€/0.5TB/month. That seems like less than half the space for the price.

[Ed]

I like your summary, thanks Stefano 🙂

I understand Infinite may not be the solution and yes, synching massive amounts of files (especially when installing it on a new machine) can be painful. 

Thanks again for posting,