Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync

Yeah it seems that DropBox is not following this thread on issues for developers and the need to be able to ignore certain files when working with DropBox. A .dropboxignore like a .gitignore would really be a good thing and will help developers a lot. Not just the ones using Node, but also the ones using Git or SVN or any other version control.

@Rapheal For the record, it seems that onedrive has a very similar group of frustrated users:
https://onedrive.uservoice.com/forums/262982-onedrive/suggestions/6988070-use-a-file-to-ignore-exclude-files-or-folder

I started using pCloud for development. They have a great linux client (and windows and mac) and do pattern matching for ignoring files and folders which seems to work great. It is system wide though but that is OK for my use case.

You just have to remember to sync a local folder on your system, as by default the pCloudDrive folder is just a networked folder, kind of like what Dropbox's project infinity is meant to be and I don't recommend messing with that (remote) folder.

I still use Dropbox, but for other things, as Dropbox is still excellent when it comes to 3rd party integrations and it has them practically everywhere.

edit: Also, pCloud's LAN syncing worked great for me 

edit: Linux to Linux LAN syncing worked well, but Linux to Windows seems problematic. 

@Stefano, that is a great suggestion and it would be pretty funny if the customer feedback forum of Dropbox led to another cloud storage service or even company being created :p

@Ettore P. Great name! Catching!

 I know it would be time consuming, and it's not something a single developer can do in his spare time. I could manage to wrap up something for the server side, and, using Node, for the client time. But it would require at leas some iOS, Swift, .NET and C developer to create native versions of the clients (Node has some memory leaks when watching many folders/files, so I think it can't be the optimal way)

By the way, my heart would be content to have .dropboxignore and nothing else, as it would clean out the major issue I ran into using Dropbox for work.

Actually there were some open source projects for this issue (like this https://github.com/doomrobo/DropboxIgnore) and another one I can't find anymore but aren't working as Dropbox closed a lot of their "local engine api" for security concerns.

It would be great to be able do even a little tool like this.

I'm looking for the @Adam and @Jordan suggestions.

Again: contacting support is not working. If you scroll some pages up this thread you'll read some Dropbox dev response. Those are all the same tone: we are reading this, we are not doing this because you are a little niche of customers but we can't say you it clearly for fear of losing you all now. So hang on another year or two. Bye.

What they maybe are not keeping in mind is that probably our companies were suggested using Dropbox from "nerds" like us that used it before. This is what happened here in my company holding. So now they have a 150+ Business Account active because a nerdy developer took a peak to an obscure startup that simplified his living and talked about it to his boss... and so on.

Simon, the Dropbox team does not consider +1's: you need to upvote the thread in order to be heard :-)

This is by far the most "upvoted" thread (444 ups and counting with 387 replies).

It's on top of Dropbox forum page. You must be as blind as a blinded mole (or you must pretend very hardly to be so) to ignore it for 2 years.

I think Dropbox isn't monitoring the forum at all. Let's use some four letter words to evocate at least a Moderator (or some sulfur and a pentagram...)

There are several ideas on this forum about allowing users to have full control over what files/folders are synced with Dropbox, which would be great. This is a simpler request. There is already a number of file types that are ignored by Dropbox (listed here: https://www.dropbox.com/help/syncing-uploads/files-not-syncing).

Files with the .lock extension should also be ignored. By definition there is no purpose in syncing files like these to dropbox.

https://fileinfo.com/extension/lock

What is a LOCK file?

+1

Something like how Tresorit does it.

[Ignore] //node_modules
[Ignore] //venv*
[Junk] //desktop.ini
[Junk] //Thumbs.db
[Junk] //.DS_Store

There you can just include the above in a ".tresorit/Filters/roaming.filter" file and voila problem solved. No more syncing 50.000+ useless files for every project.

So disappointing. Workarounds include not using Dropbox or using another cloud service. What a disgrace that a feature so widely and fervently requested would be declined with such an obviously ignorant reply.

It would be one thing if there were a technical hurdle preventing implementing this request. But simply declining the request without even acknowledging the use cases that fail to be met is a real kick in the face.

Dropbox will probably do just fine without expert users, but I for one will bemoan Dropbox and refer colleagues and friends to other services.

Ed Thanks for the reply. Took a little longer than I might have hoped to come to that conclusion. 3.5 years to be exact.

I concur with all other folk that the workarounds are not a practical solution. Workarounds are generally temporary and can be tolerated until there is a real fix. We now know the real fix is not coming. 

I can't deny that Dropbox has me well and truly snared due to the fact that I have so many shared folders with other people, but if I can convince all of them to go elsewhere then I'm sorted.

Thanks to the many thousands of people who supported this proposal. We tried our best.

Tom