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.

[Lusil]

Hi there @Sherwino!

Thanks for the detailed post, awesome work! I’ve gone ahead and moved it to the developer section of the Forum; perhaps some like-minded community members will have some more ideas to share on this with you. 

Cheers! 

[PragmaticAttack]

That's a great idea! I had a similar request whereby you can predetermine which clients will sync to a newly created folder. 

[dylan-chong]

@Lusil Where can i find this post that you moved to? I am also very interested in ignoring the node modules folders

[atccodex]

Hey @Sherwino

I have the same problem. I do the same thing as you, and I agree it is a pain. Especially with  a hard day coding, that little Dropbox icon is working overtime. BUT, you can tell Dropbox to ignore the .git folder.

http://www.dropboxwiki.com/tips-and-tricks/exclude-folders-from-syncing

Yes it is a workaround, BUT it will work. Usually though, when I am coding, I will pause the sync completely while I am actively working. Then when I am done for a while, I'll resume the sync and just let it work for a while (usually just let it do it's thing overnight). No it isn't perfect, no I don't need those useless files on Dropbox. Yes, it would be AWESOME if this could get implemented for a new feature like .dropboxignore.

[djm2]

I would also like this feature. Not being able to exclude node_modules ruins Dropbox for me (I know this can be done manually at the start of each project but that is not a reasonable solution). I use git and bitbucket but would like to have a copy of my entire development directory on Dropbox with the node_modules files excluded. The node_modules directory can have hundreds of thousands of files and sym links. I have to throttle the Dropbox process in order for my computer to not overheat while using Dropbox, even when I'm not even updating any files! I'll have to stop syncing my node projects and look for an alternate provider with this feature.

[that70schris]

anyone know of any alternative services with this feature?

[gnou]

It has been a very popular request from developers which has been ignored for years by Dropbox. Implementing a .gitignore like logic would simply make dropbox usable by developers.

Actually, it is not.

[garronej]

 +1
@Mark You are doing a great job at degrading Dropbox Inc's PR.

[Danziger]

Totally agree with this request!

I can't believe Dropbox has been ignoring this for so long when the selective sync feature is already there... We just need a different way to tell it what to ignore, something similar to .gitignore or, even better, just be able to tell it to use the existing .gitignore files!

In my opinion, part of the problem is that no other storage providers like Google Drive or Microsoft OneDrive are doing that either, at least not that I know. Otherwise, we might see some progress as Dropbox would probably want to catch up with what others are offering to avoid losing users...

[ashutoshw3]

I use Dropbox for syncing my development project files but every time all the libraries are uploaded to Dropbox which increases the size of the project by a huge margin. 

It would be very helpful if there is a file like .gitignore implementation for Dropbox sync which will ignore files to be uploaded.

Please implement this feature in the upcoming version, it would be a great help for all of them in the developer community. 

Dropbox has already implemented selective sync in the desktop client so this might not be a very difficult task for Dropbox.