Feedback on the new desktop app "ignore files" feature.

[jvasileff]

@Daphne that's great news! I look forward to trying it out.

But it would also be nice to have a configuration file, like ".dropboxignore", to list paths or patterns to exclude. The reason is that extended attributes are tied to the actual file or folder, and will be gone if the file or folder is deleted and recreated.

The common use case for this is a software build folder that gets deleted and recreated on clean builds. Under xattr system, the "new" build folder would sync to Dropbox even if the "old" build folder had the necessary com.dropbox.ignored xattr.

[koochy_rat]

I too need such a feature. I'm using Unity and the xattr method doesn't work for the Temp folder which gets created and deleted constantly. Selective sync used to work fine for this and indicated with the gray minus icon. But in recent versions of Dropbox, creating a folder with the same name now gets instantly renamed to "Temp (Selective Sync Conflict)". This causes Unity to crash immediately because it can no longer find its files.

Someone else has experienced this as well:

Can't use selective sync to ignore (node_modules) folders anymore

[mixmonkey]

Kind of a shame really. Dropbox (as a company) has clearly underestimated the number of its users using the selective sync fudge (ie create a folder with the same name as the file you want to exclude etc etc)

They removed/broke this and don't have a legitimate solution ready to go in its place, leaving people high and dry and probably investigating other platforms for a solution.

This kind of behaviour never bodes well for the share price btw.

[NormSash]

This feature is definitly needed.  And I really hope there is a global admin space for this so that we can login to the admin console and specify file types, file names, and folder names that we never want synced no matter where they exist on client systems.  I don't want to go to every computer and set up the masks.  And by having it in the web admin area if the exclusions need to chagne I can simply change it there and it is automatically applied to every client computer.

[ccd1]

yeah, if anyone has suggestions for other platforms that handle developer usage sensibly, I'd be happy to hear...

[NormSash]

I agree, other sync services like pCloud work just fine and allow you to put in extension, filename, or folder name and just have it excluded from sync. And this needs to be implemented via a web admin so the exclusion can be done for all client computers that connect to the service. I don't want to go around to every computer and update the exclusion list everytime something changes.

Also, this is not just a developer issue.  There are many, many other use cases where folders / files need to be excluded.  As an example, Adobe Lightroom creates massive changes in the folders and files for a photo library catalog.  The vast majority of them need to be excluded.  So don't think this is just a developer issue.

[mixmonkey]

Absolutely not just a developer issue. I (used) to the use the selective sync fudge to leave out machine specific files when syncing an application across mulitple devices. It worked fine and I was happy.

Now it's broken and that increase in subscription fee is looking like poor value for money.

[koochy_rat]

I believe that the selective sync behaviour is determined by the local Dropbox setting somewhere. I used to have the old behaviour until I completely deleted and reinstalled Dropbox and redownloaded all my folders recently on my Mac. And selective sync never worked the same anymore. Maybe there is some setting or metadata somewhere we can set to choose this. My other Windows machine still has the old selective sync on the same folders, so it's not some global online setting.

[adamL]

As if all the issues web developers are facing with Dropbox is not enough, I don't think anyone has yet brought up the issue of temp files? For example, every time someone opens an Adobe InDesign file, an .IDLK file is created in the same directory (probably for file recovery), and this file is then deleted when the InDesign file is closed.

So these .IDLK files are constantly being indexed and synced with Dropbox for no reason.

So once again, we need a global ignore feature.

[digiwombat]

At the risk of piling on, I feel it's important to add another voice to the list:

If this isn't a .ignore style file-based solution or, at the very least, a UI-based list of file/folder patterns (like every other solution currently in existence) it will be essentially useless.

The same is true if the files are still being indexed and processed but not uploaded. I have multiple tools where there's no trick to get the folders out of the hierarchy and they change often, leading to 20% CPU use spikes while Dropbox goes to work. It also locks files which causes automated copies to fail which leads to rebuilds and more of my life wasted.

I'm pausing syncing at this point which means I'm losing out on meaningful use of one of the core features I need, file versioning. If something happens, I don't want to lose a full day of progress.

Thanks for finally getting around to this feature, but I'm in agreement with everyone here that the file-attribute version is a non-solution.

[DaafSamson]

+1

Lack of such a feature is killing dropbox for me as a developer.