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.

[AndreiD]

Any news on this being implemented? Also looking for a ".gitignore" style solution.

[nicc777]

@AndreiDIt's been 8 years and 4 months now, so it might still take some time. The crew at Dropbox tried to sell us a solution a couple of months ago, but they were completely off the mark and clearly did not understand the requirements - even after several years of investing time on it.

There are a number of other alternatives, like MEGASync, you can try in the mean time.

[REIF-FH]

+1

[01059422113]

저도 그 기능은 꼭 생기면 좋을 것 같습니다^^

[Sam DBX]

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know that we are actively considering the suggestions you’ve made so far.

We wish we could provide an exact deadline (as we completely understand the expectation), however, our team is committed to providing a solution that meets your needs.

Stay tuned and thanks for your patience so far!

[ErwinM]

A basic gap with the Ignored files feature is that a .dropboxignore file would be synced across device. So it'd automatically preserve the configuration across multiple Dropbox instances (or migrations). It'd also make it possible to apply broadly on all files matching a pattern (e.g. excluding *.tmp), and be much more practical to manage than having to run a Powershell script.

A partial workaround in the meantime could be to use ChatGPT to generate a Powershell script that takes a .dropboxignore file as input and produces equivalent commands, but it wouldn't help if the goal is to exclude files or folders based on a wildcard pattern (meaning more files could be created that'd match the pattern but would not be ignored unless the script is re-run).

[DelugeIA]

This feature (or rather this thread)...

• was created 8.5 years ago (‎12-18-2014)
• has 1,342 up votes
• has 956 replies or comments
• has 455,000 views

It's disappointing to see that Dropbox hasn't made this feature a higher priority.

-- Jeff Sorensen

[paul_skinner]

Hello,

Please implement filters for synchronizing. Allow filtering by any available metadata. Creation date, file type, file size, file name contains "x" etc.

This could be implemented as a contextual menu ( "Filter" ) with sub items ( "Never Sync", "Always Sync", "Sync When" ) and conditionals. Creating one of these conditional filters would add it to a list of filters that are accessible and editable in the GUI. A "Filters" pane in the Dropbox menu item would be another fine implementation.

i.e.

"Never Sync" IF [filetype] is ".idlk"

"Never Sync" IF [created date] IS BEFORE [date]

"Always Sync" IF [file size] IS LESS THAN [size] 

"Sync When" [time of day] IS AFTER [time]

Manually adding every item of a particular extension to the ignore list to be ignored is tedious and unmaintainable. When ignore lists become extremely long additional performance issues may arise.

Add, at a minimum, customizable file-type based sync filters. 

[corylulu]

@paul_skinnerlet's don't pivot to alternatives. This is a solved issues using .gitignore type syntax.

.dbignore is what we want, it should be absolutely clear that's the solution and it absolutely needs to be implemented and Dropbox has been a nuacence for their sheer lack of innovation over the last decade for their primary use case; file sync.

[corylulu]

@Sam DBXplease stop saying this. It's been way to long to act like you are considering "providing a solution that meets your needs."

THIS A SOLVED PROBLEM WITH AN INDUSTRY STANDARD THAT IS WIDELY USED! Stop gaslighting! Just implement the feature and stop pretending you're working on it! You're not! We know you're not! If you were, it wouldn't take nearly a decade to do!