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.

[nicc777]

@snatcherwelcome to the most requested feature which is seemingly impossible for the Dropbox team to figure out. You might be better of with a competing product for now.

[Lars P.3]

Happy 8th anniversary to this basic idea. 8 years and dropbox are still thinking about it. This could be implemented in an afternoon if Dropbox wanted to. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case and I'm pretty sure that we will make it to 10 years as well. 

 

[Razvan Boxifier]

@Lars P.3 while it may feel that way, there is actually some hope for this feature to be delivered sooner than expected.

The Dropbox Backup FAQ contains a reference to a ".dbxignore" file that Dropbox places in the root of the external drive when you use Dropbox Backup with that drive. The contents of that file look like this:

You can quickly notice the structure of the .dbxignore file looks inspired by that of .gitignore files.

I tried to edit the contents of the file and added a new wildcard rule. The next time Dropbox backup was triggered (I had to restart Dropbox for that), the rule that I added took effect. Hooray!

Hope this helps at least with giving some hope that since Dropbox now has this implemented for backups, they could soon be adding it to their sync product as well.

Razvan

[nicc777]

@Razvan Boxifier- I would not hold my breath. They have been "investigating" since October, after they thought the solved the problem by not solving it. After 8 years, this is just absolutely ridiculous. You are better off using a competing product if you need a dropbox like solution with the requested selective ignore/sync feature.

[Johnny W.2]

Wow, I can't believe they added this feature to Backup but not Sync! So close, and yet so far! They seem determined to ignore the most update users they have 😞 

[Justin from Just Front-end]

@Razvan Boxifier 

Are you by chance, able to explain exactly what this command is doing?

Set-Content -Path C:\Users\yourName\Dropbox\someFolder -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1

I read the Microsoft docs on "Set-Content", but I'm perplexed exactly on how this stops Dropbox from syncing? Is there a list of files/folders somewhere on one's computer which Dropbox uses as a reference for what files/folders not to sync?

Or is such a reference stored in the cloud?

Can of confusion 🙂

Thanks!

[Justin from Just Front-end]

Wow ... same here. I can't believe that it's 2023 now, and we still don't have an easy way to accomplish local-only files.

[Justin from Just Front-end]

@Razvan Boxifier - Are you by chance, able to explain exactly what this command is doing?

"Set-Content -Path C:\Users\yourName\Dropbox\someFolder -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1"

I read the Microsoft docs on "Set-Content", but I'm perplexed exactly on how this stops Dropbox from syncing? Is there a list of files/folders somewhere on one's computer which Dropbox uses as a reference for what files/folders not to sync?

Or is such a reference stored in the cloud?

[nei a.]

and the silence off dropbox continues

[corylulu]

@Emma I assume after several months of investigating after 8 years of being at the top of Top "Dropbox ideas", surely Dropbox can give us an update on a critical feature for many.

At the very least, it should have a status update from "Investigating" to "Accepted" again considering it was "Accepted" before and never actually delivered in any usable fashion.