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.

[josephniet]

Why is this still not a thing? Manually excluding absolute paths every time I spin up / rename / move a dev project isn't an acceptable solution. I've started moving my dev work outside of my shared dropbox & using git to sync instead.

[nickyhajal]

It's completely absurd. Please add this simple feature. All the other sync tools have it.

[RaulDurand]

This feature request has been outstanding for quite some time. It appears that it may not align with Dropbox's interests, as it could potentially decrease the need for users to upgrade their storage plans due to reduced space usage.

Nonetheless, offering this feature exclusively to premium subscribers could be a viable solution. By enabling users to bypass syncing large temporary files, it would significantly streamline their workflow and save hours of syncing time. This enhancement would not only improve efficiency but also add substantial value to the premium service offerings.

[WreckItTim1]

I know you can ignore files and folders (making them only a local file that does not sync with Dropbox) using: https://help.dropbox.com/sync/ignored-files

However, this requires a command line entry for every file/folder that you want to ignore. Not only this, but you have to enter the ignore command for each subfile/subfolder that you want to ignore -- if they are nested in a folder that you do not want to ignore. Not only this, but you have to enter all of the ignore commands on each device you are syncing across. Not only this, but on each device you have to: 1. stop syncing, 2. create the folder/file you want to ignore, 3. enter the command to ignore it, 4. restart syncing. Not only this, but if you have one breach by creating a folder/file on one device with the same name as one being ignored on the other devices, and accidently sync before entering the ignore command (hey accidents happen), then it will corrupt your entire sync across all devices with multiple conflicts that now have to each be manually cleaned up. This is a nightmare for any setups that have multiple devices and/or wildcard local files and folders needed to be ignored.

Please create a text .ignore file that allows me to enter, including wildcard entries, files/folders/subfiles/subfolders to ignore across all devices. This avoids conflicts and messy work-arounds by providing a simple, elegant, and user-friendly feature to ignore files. Thank you!

edit: Not only this,  but if you make future files/folders then they will not automatically be added to an ignore list, and you can not use the ignore command until the file/folder is created -- whereas with an .ignore file you can preemptively set files/folders to be ignored (along with wildcard values).

[zsiegel]

@Emma @Dropbox I've been following this topic for years, have done the following with various degrees of succcess:
- used ready-made open-source solutions
- used widely-known scripting strategies for marking files as ignored
- made customized "store files outside of Dropbox folder, but make sure they are synced to Dropbox with rsync/scp/git" tools for myself

These usually usually work in the short-term but eventually something changes or I switch computers.

What we all really need is a .dropboxignore file. It's that simple. Nobody wants their laptop to get hot due to a `node_modules` folder being created or a Python virtual environment, etc., but this happens all the time.

Supporting a .dropboxignore file is the right solution! This post has 100 pages of comments!

[mendimr]

Most developers use Git for version control but I personally like to also work directly on a Dropbox folder so all my files are backed up before I push my code. The problem is that most of the projects use packages which usually no one benefits from synchronizing them so it would be great if Dropbox made an exception for these folders so they don’t back up by default unless explicitly told to do so.

Usually these folders take quite some time to synchronize with other computers and I think it is pointless to back them up not because of the storage they take but because they are thousands and thousands of files.

Before I tried to exclude those folders from synchronizing, but it that’s too much work just exclude a folder that later on will be replaced and then you have to do the same job over and over again.that’s too much work just to exclude a folder that later on will be replaced and then you’d have to do the same job over and over again. Even worse once it corrupted my entire dropbox folder and I had to re-synchronize everything.

* EDIT: I didn't even consider it but since my idea was merged with this idea, a .dropboxignore file would be the best solution here.

[kolek1985]

+1. How such a big company cannot add this simple feature that is wanted by so many people ? For me it is simply sign of NOT caring at all about their community. Shame on You.

[claredbx]

This is the top-voted issue by a factor of 3 and there are already existing patterns for how the behaviour can be implemented (e.g. gitignore). Please can we prioritise this feature, it would be a massive help.

I've tried various workarounds but none are really reliable. In all of them, if you create a new folder on one of your machines, or if you get a new device, you have to be careful to remember each of your special cases and set them up, in order to avoid a huge accidental sync. This is also true for the Ignore Files feature - it is really only a workaround for these use-cases, because it's local to the device. A .dropboxignore file is the right solution; the implementation only needs to be local, but because the .dropboxignore file itself is synced, the effect will be across all my devices. Easy and effective.

[claredbx]

Just adding for the benefit of others dealing with this issue, the only workaround I currently know of that _really_ works, unfortunately, is to avoid the official Dropbox clients completely and either use the Dropbox API or look for a third-party client which uses the Dropbox API and has better functionality in this regard.

[WreckItTim1]

these conflicts are getting really pesky, and even though I have script to go and set the attribute to ignore to a set list of folders... the behavior is still wonky and it is easy to do a slipup with the timing of when you need to do a combination of: sync, crate folders with same name that are local, ignore those local folders, resync. Especially when doing it across several devices. And one slip up will corrupt the entire Dropbox repo with conflicts. Really need a fix to this, this should be a simple feature (other software does this like GitHub).