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.

[Janne N.]

This feature will never gonna get implemented in dropbox... which is so sad. For dev's dropbox is totally useless. Any alternatives  ?

[Dave H.48]

I've given up on this happening. Two attempts to resolve perf issues with support resulted in the same eventual end - "you have too many files" and "you appear to have symlinks". Fixing this for devs is likely more risk (to general user base) than not fixing it for us...

I've moved all my dev projects out of dropbox but still use it for everything else. Github is fantastic for dev projects, although a little pricey. All is good 🙂

[Fredy M.]

I've been using MEGA for a while and so far so good. The sync client provides a feature to exclude files and folders by name. You just add node_modules to the list and the sync client will exclude all occurrences of this name in all your files.

To host private git repos for free I use GitLab.

[Erin D.2]

@Fredy Great advice! I didn't realize mega had a client like that. With 50GB free I just found my new code backup service. Also, I think bitlocker does free private hosted repos.

[Nicholas R.4]

.dropboxignore copying .gitignore would be great. Then I could exclude all these weird indesign temp-files I don't need. And the same for whatever the next software making weird temp-files is.

[TAM+CZ A.]

This article is a little dated, but still probably quite accurate:

http://www.cloudwards.net/mega-vs-google-drive-vs-skydrive-vs-sugarsync/ 

It covers more services than just the names in the link by the way.

[I. Ahn]

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[M S.27]

The most-upvoted community thread has become a list of alternative services to Dropbox because the dev team does not care.  I'm sure they see it and think "200 idiots can't find the Selective Sync feature, how sad"

Your Selective Sync folder checkbox tree is not as convenient or flexible as having an ignore file.

Hereis some pseudo code for the feature:

for( filename in files )
  if( ignoreFileGlobPattern.matches( filename )
    // do not sync the file!
  else
    // sync the file!

// wow! that was tough! Time for a vacation!

I won't consider upgrading, and will actively deter anyone from using Dropbox unless this is added.

[Carlos Henrique1]

+1 from Brazil!

[said d.]

+1

Please do this Dropbox.