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.

[Guido Walter P.]

Simon, the Dropbox team does not consider +1's: you need to upvote the thread in order to be heard 🙂

[Stefano Valicch1]

This is by far the most "upvoted" thread (444 ups and counting with 387 replies).

It's on top of Dropbox forum page. You must be as blind as a blinded mole (or you must pretend very hardly to be so) to ignore it for 2 years.

I think Dropbox isn't monitoring the forum at all. Let's use some four letter words to evocate at least a Moderator (or some sulfur and a pentagram...)

[TAM+CZ A.]

@Stefano Valicchia s.  "You must be as blind as a blinded mole (or you must pretend very hardly to be so) to ignore it for 2 years"

Absolutely true (and hilarious).  And just in case the Dropbox team managed to miss this thread, there are a few other I am aware of, maybe more.

Selective Sync suggestion - way to uncheck all folders

Ignore certain extensions

Why won't Dropbox add a .gitignore like feature?

Selective sync automatically syncs new folders

Stop auto-inheriting new folders when using selective sync

Automatic adding of new folders when selective sync is enabled

Just don't post anything to get yourself banned, that wouldn't be any fun 🙂  Personally, I think someone at Dropbox does read all this, it's just that the company doesn't care.  It would be great if they could claim ignorance, but every single one of these threads has at least one Dropbox response....

[TAM+CZ A.]

Oh and if you ever get StefanoBox up and running, sign me up!

[Peter F.10]

Thanks for the trick, but this should REALLY be a dropbox feature.

[Simon F.12]

Upvoted.

[Alexey K.]

Melle B.

It does more than just that. It would also delete the content of folders from your computer. Use with caution!

On the contrary, it won't delete anything from Dropbox servers. Hence your node_modules would remain synced on other computers ad infinitum.

In other words, `dropbox exclude` does not solve the problem.

[Lenart R.]

I'd also like to have alternative ways of ignoring files/folders from Dropbox sync. Waiting for Mac desktop client to sync all folders already takes minutes and I imagine it will only get worst as the filesystem grows.

[Colin M.7]

Another use case: I sync some "Local Folders" in Postbox which is basically archived email. It is very rarely updated except for two cases: The .msf files are apparently an index file of some sort and don't actually need to be backed up but seem to be frequently updated causing lots of useless syncs. Also, every time an email is sent it first gets copied to Unset Messages file so both Unsent Message and Unsent Messages.msf are updated and synced needlessly. I could possibly use hardlinks to try to exclude these files but that would be very tedious and I'd have to set that up on all of my PCs individually.

[Nikolaos G.]

I have actually resorted to in one case name a file I don't want to be transferred to dropbox (unencrypted version of an encrypted password file) with a ~ prefix BUT totally a head scratcher that the product wouldn't have this inherent control.

Also while the above works for 1 file how about a checked out Subversion copy that has automatically has a .svn file in EACH subfolder with literally hundreds of folders in a file tree.

Sure I could remove all these files or rename them with a UNIX command but then the working copy won't be able to sync to Subversion anymore which kind of defeats the purpose.

So every time the code in one or dozens of files and one or dozens of these .svn folder/files gets updated.  I literally have to turn off Dropbox as I've noticed an increase on upload and download bandwidth that is quite large and possibly excessive - need to test further....  Lack of an exclusion filter makes this even more painful...

Reducing bandwidth is a win-win for my system, Dropbox servers and everyone in between EXCEPT for ISPs unless you exceed quota and THEN the win-win is for the ISP only 😞