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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
undegroundalien
Explorer | Level 4

Not getting my hopes up.

It took 4 years of annoyed people to go from ignoring it, to "we're not working on it", to "we're experimenting with this possibility".

It's clear their priorities are not aligned in any way with the requests in this thread. I'll believe it when I see it.

Maybe they'll want to work on a couple new redesigns or a new tangential product on the meantime instead. Maybe a spreadsheet editor?!?!

jonathan r.38
Explorer | Level 3

I don't care about all the naysayers. I'm holding my breath!

garronej
Helpful | Level 6

@Ogilthorp If you exclude the nodes_modules directories you will no longer have 3 million files to sync.
I have been progressively migrating all my progects to pCloud and so far I havent experienced any issues. 
I remember migrating a 6 430 files project from github to pCloud I was expecting 2hours of sync times like with dropbox "indexing files..." but it just took like 10 min or so.

nicc777
Explorer | Level 4

Sugested the same feature (essentially) via twiter and got sent here to upvote (which I just did).

edit: removed link to tweet as twitter seems to generate incorrect URL's

borkdude
Helpful | Level 5

Desperately need this feature! I'm only replying so I can get notifications for this thread (didn't know how to get this otherwise).

Walter
Dropbox Staff

You can also click on the ellipsis button (...) from the upper right corner of a post and then click on 'Subscribe' so you can get notified about any future responses @borkdude.

In addition, I also wanted to thank you all for providing your constructive feedback and reassure you that your comments have been passed along to our dev team for their consideration. I can't comment on if or when this will get implemented though. 

If you have anything to add, please let us know! 

jonathan r.38
Explorer | Level 3

@Walter if the team decides not to work on it, will you at least comment on that?

borkdude
Helpful | Level 5

A programmatic (e.g. Python) or command line interface would also work for me, as long as I would be able to script something and not use the GUI. This is already possible on linux. Why not on Mac?

Ogilthorp
Explorer | Level 4

Another "no comment" on this feature.  Will be cancelling DB for either pCloud or Sync.  For those that absolutely need this feature, here's a screenshot of pCloud's ignore interface in their desktop app.

I haven't used it yet, but others in this thread are seeing dramatic indexing/syncing speed increases.  I'll be testing it out over the coming months.

Another scary part of keeping sensitive dev/source files on DB is right in their terms.  Here's a quote from /terms :

"These and other features may require our systems to access, store, and scan Your Stuff. You give us permission to do those things, and this permission extends to our affiliates and trusted third parties we work with."

No thanks.  You're fading fast, Dropbox.

sachinbee
Explorer | Level 3

I'm a developer and I work with web and mobile projects. More than often I shuffle between my desktop and my laptop (when on the move). This means that my projects are stored in Dropbox and stay in sync so that I can seamlessly work on either of these machines.

When working with Node.js projects, there is a folder named node_modules which typically ends up with thousands of files, which do not require to be synched every time because they contain thousands of files and synching it takes hours even on a fast connection. 

What I'd like to do is be able to selectively prevent folders (by a pattern) from getting uploaded. A solution like .gitignore is thus highly sought which would allow advanced users to define a pattern for preventing files and folders from getting synched.

Please do incorporate such a feature. It would drastically improve the user experience for use cases like mine. The selective sync, unfortunately, is not the best solution for this job. It's too basic and clunky for this purpose. A .dropbox file in the root with a pattern to prevent files/folders would be perfect.

Thanks

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