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.

[Guido Walter P.]

@Jeremy That's exactly the workaround I was suggesting 🙂 I think that many people here were not aware of it, possibly even the thread opener. As far as I understand also the .node_modules problem that is bothering so many people can be fixed in this way.

[Johnny W.2]

@Guido The problem is that it's a workaround, not a fix. Many of us want this feature added so we don't have to mess around with Selective Sync every time. Plus, to be honest, I'm pretty sure most have seen it: You only posted it two days ago and got several responses to it (including one from me).

[juan s.1]

@Johnny W. Exactly!.  We dont want a workaround.  We want it to be solid built-in feature.

And to the Dropbox developers. I myself being a developer, am considerate of your situation.  Both in terms of the code involved, and dealing with management.

And to the dropbox management...please realize that this would make dropbox a much more marketable product.

Its a win win!  Everyone will use this feature. Market it, if you will..I wil pay for it.  Im sure many more will too.

Win win.

[Eric W.23]

Selective Sync is an absolutely terrible solution for several reasons:

• First of all, it's clunky and counterintuitive when you simply want to ignore something. Selective Sync requires you to first add the very thing you want to ignore to Dropbox.
• Drilling down into your directory tree via the settings dialog is extremely slow and time consuming
• Once you activate Selective Sync on your directory it then removes the contents from your local drive and keeps it in the cloud - the irony of course being that you never wanted it in the cloud to begin with. And the one place where you actually want it has now been removed. (Circle back to first point)
• Directories containing Selective Sync settings must be removed via the Dropbox web app or you may never actually get rid of the directory you are trying to ignore.
• Lastly, and this is a big issue for me - if you ever move the corresponding folder in your local directory tree it breaks Selective Syncing requiring you to go through the entire process all over again. 

This is not a solution. This is a kludge is what it is. 

And I have to say I'm having a very hard time understanding why a big company like Dropbox cannot simply add a .dropboxignore feature like so many of us have been asking for. It's a very very simple concept that would help many of us achieve substantially more productivity from using their product.

[Brad B.23]

@Eric W

Asking a company (especially a large one) to "just add" a feature, no matter how apparently small, is going to take a long time. Dropbox is so huge, controlling the security of files for so many other large companies, that they need to implement, test and re-test these features to make sure that they won't mess up their infrastructure.

Would a .dropboxignore particularly mess up their entire infrastructure? Probably not. But any feature still has to be designed, user-tested, developed, tested some more, beta released and then production released. Maybe we will get it by next year if they start now!

[Andrey S.2]

@Brad B.

Are you seriously? Do you think that there is not a company that makes such a cloud for a year?

[Johnny W.2]

@Brad B. 

I agree that a feature like this will go through (which is essentially) normal development before going live. It will need to be roadmapped, designed, and tested before we can use it. That said, people have been asking for this feature for at least 10 months, but, according to Ed., our request has only just been passed on internally. I don't think anybody is suggesting that it will be done tomorrow, but rather just feeling frustrated that the response has been lacking.

I think Eric W.'s frustration was more about the perceived general apathy towards adding this feature and us, their paying customers, than anything else.

[Guido Walter P.]

I agree with Brad.

I would add that it is only logical that Dropbox gives priority to the bulk of their user base, which, I suspect, does not care much about regex or .dropboxignore files.

Yes, we have a thread with many upvotes on the Dropbox forum... but most people using Dropbox do not even know about the existence of the Dropbox forum 🙂

Reading this thread I got the idea that many "complainers" are people with a programming background - including me.

Dropbox probably prefers to employ their resources in implementing something that a wider audience would appreciate, e.g. some collaborative feature that I neither understand nor use.

I am saying this just to put things in perspective for those who appear to take it personally: it sucks that Dropbox ignores us, but probably it just means that they are giving precedence to their wider user base.

Cheers,

Guido

[Brad B.23]

Exactly, Guido.

[Johnny W.2]

To be fair, this forum is where everyone is directed to if they want to get in touch with Support or have an issue (it's actually pretty hard to get in touch in other ways -- took me a while to find another route when I wanted to get in touch directly): I didn't come here because I'm a developer, I came here because I had an issue that I Googled, and this looked like a place where I might find a solution (how wrong!).

One thing we can be sure about: This forum was created for users of Dropbox to raise and discuss issues by Dropbox themselves. They put the voting system in place as a way of helping them understand what their customers want, and what's important to them. To assume that that system is faulty, and the issues raised here do not represent their customer base is quite a leap for me. You may be right, but the available evidence (from the system Dropbox themselves created to assess such things) seems to indicate otherwise.

Either way, to learn that our request has only just been passed on to the developers now is, I think, understandably frustrating.

I would seriously like to know if this feature is likely to be roadmapped, because I going to have to look for an alternative solution that fits my needs otherwise (which I really don't want to do).