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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
Jake s.8
New member | Level 1

There should be a way to regex match certain files and just ignore them in update. I though it is a great idea to sync my main work folder, but now various massive files that are trivial to regenerate gets synched and dropbox is constantly updating and chumming moving hundreds of megabytes around. There are hacks around that, but I'm just not very excited. It is a very basic functionality to have!

Christopher N.1
Dropbox Staff

Hi Jake,

The Dropbox desktop client is designed to sync everything in your Dropbox folder. If you don't want it to sync something, just move it out of your Dropbox folder. Please bear in mind as well that we only actually upload unique files once, so if you move a large file elsewhere in your Dropbox, or move it out then back in again, all that will happen is that it will need to reindex in its new location, not be uploaded to our servers.

Hope this helps!

Jake s.8
New member | Level 1

Come on guys, stop thinking small. Why shouldn't I be able to sync my entire home directory and be done with backups forever and have access to any one small pdf hidden somewhere in the attick on my disk from my phone without having to a a conscious effort to think what I might need? You can make this work on linux with a single soft link but then it also wants to sync huge temporary data files. I want file opt-out, not opt-in.

timothy s.2
New member | Level 1

+1

pep a.
New member | Level 1

I need this feature too, AutoCAD for example creates .bak files (backup files) in the same directory of the source file, so Dropbox is uploading these .bak files all the time...

Nick P.12
New member | Level 1

+1

Ivan G.
New member | Level 1

This was requested a million times and they keep ignoring it. It's so frustrating not have a simple way to ignore files/folders.

crystian ..
New member | Level 1

+1 PLEASE!!

Terje D.
New member | Level 2

I would love an advanced feature similar to that of .hgignore and .gitingore: A simple (hidden) file placable in (at least) the root directory for dropbox where I can specify grep-patterns for folders and files to ignore.
By making it a hidden file with regex-patterns, it automatically becomes an "advanced" feature, only available for those who understand what it is and how to use it.

I am loving Dropbox more and more. My use-case/need:
I do cross-platform development (Win/Mac) using an IDE (Intellij), and I have simply put my projects in dropbox, so I can do development and testing across machines/plattforms. This works very well for me, actually. But since IDE layouts and SDK-settings are specified in project-files, I have to close the IDE on one machine Before opening it on another. Otherwise the IDEs start battling over the settings-files. Also, I have to change the SDK-links every time I go from one to the other.
But if I could simply put a line in a ".dropboxignore"-file saying to ignore certain files, that would be wonderful!

Robert M.80
New member | Level 1

+1, mostly b/c of node, but I've wanted it before this.

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1,363 votes received Status: Investigating