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Status:
Investigating
Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync
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 g...
The following idea have already been suggested in the post below :
https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Ignore-folder-without-selective-sync/idi-p/5926
However, it hasn't been implemented because the author suggested other solutions that doesn't solve my problem.
TL;DR : I would like to have a list of pattern that dropbox sync will ignore, no matter what.
Context : I like the idea of having my file backed up without even thinking about it using dropbox. However, during my work, I frequently create, edit and/or delete files/folders during automatic procedures and dropbox oftenly make these procedures fail by opening these files/folder in blocking mode.
Idea : Mimic the .gitignore method to add a list of pattern to exclude from sync anytime, so files/folders that are dynamically created doesn't get busy from dropbox sync procedure and some dropbox server & storage load could be saved this way (it's a win-win situation).
I'm aware dropbox already implement a static ignore list using selective sync or rightclick -> online, but 1. this doesn't solve the issue for dynamically generated files/folders ; 2. this is way to much a hassle when you have a lot of them/ add a new one ; 3. At my current knowledge, this doesn't work for files.
> This idea is going to need a bit more support before we share your suggestion with our team.
I would like to emphasize that the idea has received enough votes (see the linked ignore folder post above), but Dropbox hasn't implemented it fully. Dropbox's solution of ignoring a specific folder doesn't scale when you have lots of files across multiple machines. There's no substitute for a .dropboxignore or custom filter lists available in other cloud services.
Unfortunately, no one is finding this particular issue when they are searching, which explains the low number of votes.
Please pass this on to the development team. Other cloud services are implementing user-specified ignore filter lists — Dropbox hasn't. It's a big selling point amongst technical cloud services, of which Dropbox is still the most reliable. This feature is a must-have for professional users.