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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
Arne1
Explorer | Level 4

This is a very important function. I can't use Dropbox for my projects because I can't tell DropBox to ignore my IDEs temp and backup files. As soon as I start it, DropBox goes crazy and messes my file history with continues uploads. Please add a function to simply ignore files/folder by name, like .git, *.tmp and so on.

glauco76
Helpful | Level 5

+1

 

I guess this feature (or similar) is being asked in like 20 other threads, each one with 100s votes.

 

Summing up all of these makes this request the top of the top of the top of the top priority for new features development for Dropbox (business, pro or basic)

sanfuncisco
Explorer | Level 3

Everyone, look no further... just use this:

https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing

sinnaj-r
New member | Level 2

+1

I have been a Dropbox Power User for years now, but I'm not sure if I can use Dropbox much longer while it doesn't provide a feature like this;

syncing simply takes forever and my machine is constantly on 100% CPU to sync the 100s of thousands of files in my node_modues folders.

Raju R.
Explorer | Level 4

Why does dropbox want to host that no one wants to keep in cloud. Waiting for something like,

.dropboxignore
terman
New member | Level 2

+1

benony
New member | Level 2

Been using Dropbox for many years, but if they can't add the possibility to exclude folders in selective sync, without deleting them, then I'm unfortunately gonna have to find me a new service that can.

TAM+CZ A.
Explorer | Level 3

Please check out the post I made here.  I can't believe it took me so long to try something different.

bohende
Helpful | Level 5

Has dropbox even acknowleged this feature yet? Not having this feature is one thing but ignoring 419+ requests is pretty outrageous.

 

Are there dropbox alternatives that do offer this feature? node_modules is such a waste of space/bandwidth...

Ben C.21
Explorer | Level 4

Just another reminder - since many people are still complaining about it - that Dropbox's Selective Sync feature ALREADY allows you to exclude node_modules (or any other folder) from your Dropbox account and keep them only on local machines. It's what I do.

 

It's just a bit more fiddly and not user-friendly if you're trying to keep local files from being copied to the cloud rather than the other way round, but it can still be done easily enough.

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1,363 votes received Status: Investigating