18 ms·

Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta

121 points by spectaclepiece 7y ago

spectaclepiece 7y ago
The most requested feature, to allow a file or folder to be ignored by Dropbox sync without using selective sync is finally in beta. The community requested a .dropboxignore file but they chose another solution which I’m sure is reasonable for making the feature more user friendly to non-devs. This will be immensely helpful for node_modules or build target directories.
- chairmanwow1 7y ago
  Who needs a VCS when you could just use Dropbox?
  - positr0n 7y ago
    Even better, Dropbox as your VCS and database! https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/eaphr8/a_dropbox_account_gave_me_stomach_ulcers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/eaphr8/a_dropbox_...
    - jedieaston 7y ago
      That story makes me want to become a goat farmer every time I read it, but, Dropbox must have intended that usage if they had a publicly available API, right?
      - iudqnolq 7y ago
        According to TFA in parent Dropbox happily had them on a custom plan, charging them more and more as their data grew.
  - pytester 7y ago
    Anybody who might want to back up uncommitted changes and files you can't check in to your repository? I don't do it personally, but I know people who do and it's not entirely illogical.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - skocznymroczny 7y ago
    Why use Dropbox if you could just use FTP + SVN/CVS? [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
    - mickael-kerjean 7y ago
      I did exactly that: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash As a side effect, it even supports .gitignore!
  - michaelmior 7y ago
    Dropbox as a VCS for separate documents intended to be accessed by non-technical users is not a terrible solution. Certainly there are better options, but I think something built on Dropbox could be workable in this case.
- guitarbill 7y ago
  the problem with this solution seems to me that you can't easily recursively ignore e.g. `__pycache__` or `node_modules`. sure, it's less complexity than defining and parsing an oddball text file with potentially weird glob expressions, but also less powerful. still, i'll definitely be making use of this!
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  I can imagine a world where a arbitrary directory is filled with gitignore, dropboxignore, googledriveignore, backblazeignore, s3ignore, rsynciginore, dotignore, ipfsignore . . . Goddamn, stop the world I want to get off
  - bsaul 7y ago
    That's probably a clue something needs to be done at the OS level regarding FS integration with cloud syncing systems and permissions.
    - monsieurbanana 7y ago
      All major OS already have a permission' system. It's on dropbox & co to honor them. On linux you can create an user group named "cloud", and allow dropbox to only sync files that belong to that group.
      - bsaul 7y ago
        Except dropbox will be totally unaware and try to access it. What i envisionned was more like a "control center" app of all the outgoing (and incoming) pipes from your FS to syncing systems, with both last syncing time, configuration, etc. A little bit like what's already happening for mail and calendar integration into iOS applications, only for files and on the desktop.
        monsieurbanana 7y ago
        Sorry, I edited my post before reading yours. Yes, right now Dropbox would probably crash, but that's their problem. I really don't think it's something that should be handled by the OS when they already have a solution for it.
        bsaul 7y ago
        Depending on wether you're a linux, windows or mac user, you'll probably have different expectations on what the OS is suppose to provide by default.
- golergka 7y ago
  > This will be immensely helpful for node_modules or build target directories. Why would anyone put a node project in Dropbox to begin with?
  - ChuckNorris89 7y ago
    Sharing your work with other companies where sales/marketing people need to have access to since they have no clue how to use Git.
  - kbumsik 7y ago
    I put everything in Dropbox including all of my projects. In my experience it works pretty well even if node_modules can't be ignored now. Putting every projects in Dropbox with .git is the most awesome feature of Dropbox. With Dropbox's History and Time Machine feature, you will be almost never able to delete/overwrite your work permanently, even by intention.
    - golergka 7y ago
      Why not just use github, gitlab or other VCS? Personally, I enjoy using Dropbox for music projects (which VCS are not well suited for), but for code... (I apologize if I sound as if I'm telling you what you should be doing; I am really just trying to understand the motivation behind such a decision - but I fully understand that even if something seems bizzare to me, it's just my personal humble uninformed opinion).
      - kaishiro 7y ago
        I don’t do as the parent does, but I’ve thought about it. The main difference is that a remote repo still requires an action to achieve backup parity. Using Dropbox your changes would start syncing the second you type :w. So even if you don’t finish the current development thought-line and commit upstream, you’re still backed up. Still not sure if it’s a good idea or not, but not being able to ignore node_modules was the real blocker for me before.
      - treis 7y ago
- amelius 7y ago
  > but they chose another solution which I’m sure is reasonable for making the feature more user friendly to non-devs. But this begs the question: why would the "ignore file/folder" feature itself be useful to non-devs?
  - rovr138 7y ago
    More people can use it, including non-devs. Seems like a win on their side.
- cactus2093 7y ago
  Now they just need the also much-requested inverse feature, a reliable way to sync files outside of the Dropbox root folder. Useful for app specific config files that often don’t let you choose where to store them. Using symlinks on Mac sort of works but it’s kind of fragile and it’s a pain to remember to set up on a new machine, and on windows there’s no workaround at all. It’s kind of crazy that there are still these low hanging fruit advanced syncing use cases, that would help keep Dropbox’s position as a leader in this crowded space, and they are a multi billion dollar company, but they drag their feet on it for so long. I know they want to keep cranking out mediocre me-too productivity tools that nobody is asking for in case they get lucky and one catches on, but they should really be able to do this too.
  - rapunkill 7y ago
    You can use the mklink command to link files since windows 7 https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/131182-create-soft-hard-symbolic-links-windows.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/131182-create-soft-hard-...
    - davrosthedalek 7y ago
      All linking tricks are often defeated if the program in question writes to the file. Especially on windows, it's common practice to first write out a new file, if you didn't crash, remove the old file and rename the new file. This breaks the link. I'm not sure if this is also common for config files, but I would not be surprised.
      - Epskampie 7y ago
        Just link the parent folder into dropbox, I do it for savegames all the time. Or switch to resilio sync, it’s great and selfhosted. Unlimited folders can be used.
- Ohn0 7y ago
  For dropbox, which was mainly a user focused solution to sharing files, this seems like a very unfriendly solution to ignoring files?
oscarpaz 7y ago
This is good to know! On Linux, Dropbox's CLI implements an 'exclude' command that you can apply to certain files/folders. But it doesn't always work. I've had issues especially with Docker volumes, that I set to ignore, but dropbox gets stalled in a endless syncing status... Hope this fixes it!
s9w 7y ago
That seems like an arcane solution, although I'm happy they finally added it
- CGamesPlay 7y ago
  I think this is a perfectly good technical solution that they haven't built a modern UI for, is all. It's great that under the hood the feature will be easily scriptable using standard OS utilities.
  - s9w 7y ago
    Yeah I'm just confused why there is no UI integration. It's not like Dropbox is too light on the UI otherwise.
    - michaelmior 7y ago
      I'm assuming since this is beta they probably guessed enough of the users who want this are technically capable of managing without a UI during testing.
terpua 7y ago
for those using google drive or onedrive, we have ignore rules which supports gitignore syntax -- https://help.insynchq.com/en/articles/3045421-ignore-rules https://help.insynchq.com/en/articles/3045421-ignore-rules note: i'm a co-founder
- pottertheotter 7y ago
  To clarify, Insync is a client used in place of Backup and Sync / Drive File Stream? Do you have a Linux CLI client? I have a headless Ubuntu server at home that I sync personal files on. Currently using Dropbox but in the process of switching to Google Drive (both a personal and business account) and it seems like there's no good CLI only client for Linux.
  - terpua 7y ago
    we have a headless client for insync 1.5.7 but we are adding it also to our laster version: insync 3. we are asking for feedback here -- https://forums.insynchq.com/t/feedback-wanted-insync-3-headless/15488 https://forums.insynchq.com/t/feedback-wanted-insync-3-headl...
karlicoss 7y ago
Obligatory mention of Syncthing, which had .stignore file for a while [0]. It's open source, and you can selfhost in; but the downside comparing to Dropbox is that you won't be able to access your files if your computers are off. [0] https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html
- bad_user 7y ago
  Recommending Syncthing kind of misses the point for many Dropbox users. I want cloud storage that's hosted on infrastructure that's not mine, because I don't trust myself to keep it redundant and up to date, a perpetual security risk. Even if I could setup a local LAN storage device at home and keep it always on and available, it's a nuisance and I don't want it. Even more, when accessing files, I don't necessarily want to download them locally. If I have photos or documents, I want to search them or browse them without downloading entire folders locally. And I browse files on my iPhone quite often too, I need a good iPhone app. My only problem with Dropbox is one of security, as it misses end to end encryption, but then again, the files wouldn't be as accessible if they did that, plus personally I think encryption should be local and app specific for it to be reliable, therefore I'm encrypting (via GPG mostly) the sensitive files that I need to encrypt.
kbumsik 7y ago
Interesting. It's the first time for me to see a use of file attributes in Linux. What are the common use cases of file attributes? Also, I just notice that every files in Dropbox folder has com.dropbox.attributes key with unreadable binary value. Does anyone have an idea about this field?
- progval 7y ago
  > What are the common use case of file attributes? CephFS (a distributed filesystem) uses them to allow users to control the layout of directories and files, ie. how they are split into chunks and what pool they are stored on; and each pool has its own replication settings. https://docs.ceph.com/docs/mimic/cephfs/file-layouts/ https://docs.ceph.com/docs/mimic/cephfs/file-layouts/
- _visgean 7y ago
  its dropbox id for each file - useful when you move files around, dropbox client can check the ids with the data on server and decide whether to upload the file or not...
  - kbumsik 7y ago
    That is a clever approach to track files. Thanks for info.
treebornfrog 7y ago
Genuine question, why do people here use Dropbox or box when Google drive is far superior?
- dot1x 7y ago
  Because, to this day, Dropbox is the only cloud storage service that is capable of syncing only the part of a file that was modified. If you have ISOs, zips etc, GDrive will re-upload the entire file while Dropbox will only upload the changed parts. This alone is why I keep using Dropbox.
- gtirloni 7y ago
  In my case because Dropbox support for Linux is far superior.
  - treebornfrog 7y ago
    Fair enough, I guess I should have asked why Mac users prefer dropbox or box.
    - bluebasket 7y ago
      always between mac and windows. i have had better experience with dropbox than drive. in fact, i have all three: onedrive, dropbox, and drive. drive is my least favorite...
- Angostura 7y ago
  Because it is a much more seamless experience, at least on Mac, where it is properly integrated with Finder?
  - treebornfrog 7y ago
    Take a look at Alfred (1). (1)https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
- rrreese 7y ago
Angostura 7y ago
OK, this is probably a very dumb question, but I'm trying tio understand the usecase. I put things that I want to sync with Dropbox in /Dropbox and take out things that I don't want to sync. Why would I want to leave things in /Dropbox that I don't want on Dropbox?
- marksomnian 7y ago
  If you're a Node/JavaScript developer, you might want to keep code in Dropbox, but putting node_modules in there will tank it.
  - b3kart 7y ago
    Does it not suggest that node_modules in the source directory isn't a good idea to begin with?
    - gitgud 7y ago
      The project directory would contain everything needed for that project including node_modules (which is generated from the package.json) Every nodejs project is structured this way... node_modules is always sitting next to your src...
    - edanm 7y ago
      It is usually git-ignored, which means it isn't part of the "real" source directory (the one that is shared with other devs). It's a temporary output of the build process, in essence.
  - dylan604 7y ago
    I don't use Dropbox, nor am I a Node dev. Why would a node_modules directory tank Dropbox?
    - somehnguy 7y ago
      Because NPM's first operation is to pull in half the internet as modules so you can write 'Hello World' on your webpage. Thats too many files for the Dropbox client to handle.
dropdrive 7y ago
Is there any reason to use dropbox over onedrive? This feature has been in onedrive I believe since Windows 10 release? (Also onedrive has linux clients too so- I use it on Linux itself and the linux client by abraunegg supports this)
- bluebasket 7y ago
  dropbox is a nicer experience of the three.
- kbumsik 7y ago
  > Also onedrive has linux clients too But there is a huge gap between official linux support by Dropbox and a thrid-party app. In my experience, Dropbox's syncing experience is generally superior than the others, especially when it comes to file stability. Its history and time machine feature (or folder rewind) is so great.
- lifthrasiir 7y ago
  YMMV, but Dropbox used to be much, much faster (by at least an order of magnitude) than OneDrive in my region. I don't know the status quo though.
- gumby 7y ago
  I have had lots of sync problems with one drive (files excluded because of characters in their names, frequent, heavy resyncs). Perhaps you don't see these problems if you use Windows. I wanted to use it as the marginal cost was 0 (already had to have a Word license) but I couldn't rely on it. I don't like Dropbox spraying shrapnel through my mac's UI even though I told it not to, so don't take this as a defense of DB -- it simply sucks less and does the baseline (save my files) better. Which is also my justification for using a Mac (sucks the least of the options available to me).
- mrlala 7y ago
  Oh god.. Onedrive. First of all, this was about 2-3 years ago.. not sure if things have changed. (1) Onedrive "for business" was completely different than OneDrive personal. It still worked under some archaic office sharepoint or whatever thing to some degree.. so first when I tried to use it there was some terrible path/file limitation (lower than normal windows) and it didn't like some special symbols. So let's ignore that nightmare above, maybe it's changed. (2) Even with onedrive personal and the business version I used.. it COULD NOT manage a lot of files. I mean even 50k-100k files it would just stop working basically. It would just sit there stuck, never do anything etc. On Dropbox we have well over a million files and it works fine. Some chunk of files change all the time and it still works. tl;dr if you have a LOT of files.. Dropbox is the way to go- nothing else I have tried comes even close to it.
kissgyorgy 7y ago
LOL I think Nextcloud has this feature for years already? Such a superior experience compared to Dropbox! I will never look back! Especially now with the next big update: Nextcloud Hub: https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/
Illniyar 7y ago
Will an ignored file be ignored for all devices or just my device? That is, what if I have a file/directory in my dropbox on one device and then another device "ignores" it? would it be ignored everywhere or just in my device? Either way seems like a recipe for a lot of problems. No wonder it took so long to get to it (and it's still in Beta).
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  Paragraph #2 answers your question: > Once ignored, the file or folder remains where it is in your Dropbox folder and is synced to your computer’s hard drive, but it’s deleted from the Dropbox server and your other devices, can’t be accessed on dropbox.com, and won’t sync to your Dropbox account.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
fyp 7y ago
The dropbox cli already lets you ignore folders. I've have had the following script for many years to ignore node_modules: exclude_folders=$(find . -type d -name "node_modules" | grep -v "node_modules/") echo "Excluding $exclude_folders" dropbox exclude add $exclude_folders dropbox exclude list The feature I want is pattern-based ignore in a .dropboxignore file.
- doomrobo 7y ago
  This is also true of the GUI. It's called Selective Sync
  - dmitshur 7y ago
    I’m finding it hard to understand how this new feature differs from Selective Sync. Is there something this lets one do that couldn’t be done before? Or is it just adding convenience?
    - kbumsik 7y ago
      Try unselect node_modules in Selective Sync for ignoring purpose. Uh-oh, you just deleted node_modules in your machine.
    - jayrhynas 7y ago
      This is kind of the opposite. With Selective Sync, the file exists on Dropbox.com and 0 or more client devices, and each device can choose whether or not to sync the file. The new ignore feature allows a file to exist on one device without being uploaded or synced to other devices.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  I work on a major dropbox competitor. We have the ability to do regex-based ignores, but it's deliberately hidden. (And not part of any regression suite.) As we've optimized the product, regexes would cause a huge performance problem. Why? Part of our optimization includes representing paths in an optimized data structure. In order to process the regex, each path would need to be converted back to its full string, which is computationally "expensive" when working with 20,000 or more files and folders.
gwbas1c 7y ago
I worked on a sync product that had this feature "forever." The problem with the "ignore" feature is that it creates corner cases in almost every use case we add. A huge amount of engineering resources goes into this feature, even though its only used by a minority of users. A big problem comes with un-ignoring a file / folder, specifically if someone else has gone and added the same file / folder on another computer or in the web. The only way to make that use case work smoothly is to basically read minds, because there's no way to know which version of the file / folder is the right one.
- yunruse 7y ago
  Sync conflicts are never fun, but from personal experience programs that attempt to auto-resolve them aren’t exactly letting the user in on what’s going on. The best way to make that work in that case would be to explicitly inform the user when unignoring of the conflict and ask which to keep (showing metadata etc). A quick “retain other version” would help if the user was unsure.
  - gwbas1c 7y ago
    All I can say is: That's easier said than done. Dropbox's implementation has no UI, building such a wizard is probably much more complicated than they anticipated! I've always advocated for wizards like that, but everyone gets enamored with building the next shiny feature. Some days I wonder if I should just quit and make an open source sync product... And if I'd actually make a living doing it!
joeblau 7y ago
Could they make it work like git? Then all of the templates hosted by https://gitignore.io https://gitignore.io would work!
rmah 7y ago
I have never understood why dropbox refuses to allow folders other than "Dropbox" to be sync'ed. It mystifies me and keeps me from using it.
- auto 7y ago
  Kinda feels like a dark pattern in order to get Dropbox to be your "filesystem". Can't lie, I've been a dropbox user since nearly the very beginning, and a paid user for longer than I can remember, and it does kinda fill this purpose for me. Application and platform specific things live outside of my Dropbox directory, but everything personal, work, and school related document wise lives in it, as well as a mostly unsynced folder that holds the backlog archive of my entire digital life, to the tune of ~400gb.
binichgross 7y ago
Well, better late than never.
paulcnichols 7y ago
Rejoice!
brian_herman__ 7y ago
It would be cool to make a file that would be globally ignored with all syncing services so it couldn't be uploaded. Though I do not think this is possible.
dpcan 7y ago
Fantastic!!! Will definitely go back to Dropbox when this feature is available. Recently I switched to OneDrive, also no ignore that I can find, but I'm only making extra copies of stuff in there that I want backed up to the cloud.
- CodeWriter23 7y ago
  Did OneDrive finally lift the 20,000 hard limit on the total number of files?
bad_user 7y ago
Are these settings persisted on their server? Does Dropbox know to not sync those files on a new computer, or do you have to set those settings everywhere? If not, if this works like Selective Sync (which is a local setting), then you can end up accidentally syncing those files from new computers. And is thus not equivalent with a .gitignore. Also does it support glob patterns? Why couldn't they do a .gitignore that syncs along with your other Dropbox files and be done with it?
- mah_man 7y ago
  On a side note, you really are true to your name!
wtmt 7y ago
While the instructions go to a level of detail with the assumption that the person typing these commands may not be familiar with them, I don’t get why there are no instructions on this page to revert ignoring a file or folder so that it starts syncing to Dropbox again.
veeralpatel979 7y ago
It's unfortunate that as startups get larger, the speed of improvement on their product often gets slower. It's strange to me that Dropbox has thousands of employees, people have wanted this for a _long_ time, and yet this hasn't been built. You'd think that with more engineering/PM/design talent the product would get better, and faster. Anyone have any insight into why happens? I've never worked at a early stage startup but here are some hypotheses: - Maybe this is a good thing. After a product is "done", adding more functionality makes it worse, not better. - Maybe the company leadership's focus shifts from building a great product to scaling as fast as possible. And doing both at once isn't possible. - Maybe the engineering division grows substantially, but the number of people actually working on the product doesn't change much. Instead the new engineers work on important, but auxiliary things, like dev tooling, security, infra, ops, etc - Maybe developing features takes longer because there's more process: security/legal/ops needs to review it, several layers of management need to approve it, it needs to work in multiple countries, etc - Maybe the urgency to keep improving your product disappears after you feel that you've made it - Maybe it's more important to take longer to build stable, complete features instead of shipping as fast as possible
- franze 7y ago
  Overhiring. Individual productivity goes down the more the company hires. At one point big software companies are only big because they can afford to be big. I wrote about it here https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/overhiring-b966a6ff383d?source=friends_link&sk=2c4e3013c14534e1ec9a7f464da6be80 https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/overhiring-b966a6ff383d...
  - veeralpatel979 7y ago
    I read this somewhere on HN: if your company has $1 million in ARR with 3 people, you'll likely feel need to hire more people, even if the 3 people get the job done. Now repeat this with $1 billion in ARR...you get the picture. I've seen "Bullshit Jobs" recommended here on HN [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
- twblalock 7y ago
nvr219 7y ago
Mazal tov
andy9775 7y ago
can I do a pattern based ignore, to ignore a specific folder in all subfolders? Dropbox//node_modules/ or similar?
azhenley 7y ago
I recently wrote a blog post about another feature I have been wishing Dropbox would add. Looks like it won't be happening anytime soon... "Hey Dropbox, why can't I compare file versions like this?" http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/whycanticomparefileversions.html http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/whycanticomparefileversion...
dkobia 7y ago
FYI I tried this feature out a few months ago and found it to be useless for build folders. Extended attributes (xattr) get lost everytime you recreate a file/folder - think 'build', 'node_modules' etc. Additionally Dropbox broke selective sync which is even more infuriating. All this combined means my hard drive is running all the time.

The most requested feature, to allow a file or folder to be ignored by Dropbox sync without using selective sync is finally in beta. The community requested a .dropboxignore file but they chose another solution which I’m sure is reasonable for making the feature more user friendly to non-devs. This will be immensely helpful for node_modules or build target directories.

chairmanwow1 7y ago
Who needs a VCS when you could just use Dropbox?
- positr0n 7y ago
  Even better, Dropbox as your VCS and database! https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/eaphr8/a_dropbox_account_gave_me_stomach_ulcers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/eaphr8/a_dropbox_...
  - jedieaston 7y ago
    That story makes me want to become a goat farmer every time I read it, but, Dropbox must have intended that usage if they had a publicly available API, right?
    - iudqnolq 7y ago
      According to TFA in parent Dropbox happily had them on a custom plan, charging them more and more as their data grew.
- pytester 7y ago
  Anybody who might want to back up uncommitted changes and files you can't check in to your repository? I don't do it personally, but I know people who do and it's not entirely illogical.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- skocznymroczny 7y ago
  Why use Dropbox if you could just use FTP + SVN/CVS? [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
  - mickael-kerjean 7y ago
    I did exactly that: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash As a side effect, it even supports .gitignore!
- michaelmior 7y ago
  Dropbox as a VCS for separate documents intended to be accessed by non-technical users is not a terrible solution. Certainly there are better options, but I think something built on Dropbox could be workable in this case.
guitarbill 7y ago
the problem with this solution seems to me that you can't easily recursively ignore e.g. `__pycache__` or `node_modules`. sure, it's less complexity than defining and parsing an oddball text file with potentially weird glob expressions, but also less powerful. still, i'll definitely be making use of this!
NikolaeVarius 7y ago
I can imagine a world where a arbitrary directory is filled with gitignore, dropboxignore, googledriveignore, backblazeignore, s3ignore, rsynciginore, dotignore, ipfsignore . . . Goddamn, stop the world I want to get off
- bsaul 7y ago
  That's probably a clue something needs to be done at the OS level regarding FS integration with cloud syncing systems and permissions.
  - monsieurbanana 7y ago
    All major OS already have a permission' system. It's on dropbox & co to honor them. On linux you can create an user group named "cloud", and allow dropbox to only sync files that belong to that group.
    - bsaul 7y ago
      Except dropbox will be totally unaware and try to access it. What i envisionned was more like a "control center" app of all the outgoing (and incoming) pipes from your FS to syncing systems, with both last syncing time, configuration, etc. A little bit like what's already happening for mail and calendar integration into iOS applications, only for files and on the desktop.
      - monsieurbanana 7y ago
        Sorry, I edited my post before reading yours. Yes, right now Dropbox would probably crash, but that's their problem. I really don't think it's something that should be handled by the OS when they already have a solution for it.
        bsaul 7y ago
        Depending on wether you're a linux, windows or mac user, you'll probably have different expectations on what the OS is suppose to provide by default.
golergka 7y ago
> This will be immensely helpful for node_modules or build target directories. Why would anyone put a node project in Dropbox to begin with?
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Sharing your work with other companies where sales/marketing people need to have access to since they have no clue how to use Git.
- kbumsik 7y ago
  I put everything in Dropbox including all of my projects. In my experience it works pretty well even if node_modules can't be ignored now. Putting every projects in Dropbox with .git is the most awesome feature of Dropbox. With Dropbox's History and Time Machine feature, you will be almost never able to delete/overwrite your work permanently, even by intention.
  - golergka 7y ago
    Why not just use github, gitlab or other VCS? Personally, I enjoy using Dropbox for music projects (which VCS are not well suited for), but for code... (I apologize if I sound as if I'm telling you what you should be doing; I am really just trying to understand the motivation behind such a decision - but I fully understand that even if something seems bizzare to me, it's just my personal humble uninformed opinion).
    - kaishiro 7y ago
      I don’t do as the parent does, but I’ve thought about it. The main difference is that a remote repo still requires an action to achieve backup parity. Using Dropbox your changes would start syncing the second you type :w. So even if you don’t finish the current development thought-line and commit upstream, you’re still backed up. Still not sure if it’s a good idea or not, but not being able to ignore node_modules was the real blocker for me before.
    - treis 7y ago
amelius 7y ago
> but they chose another solution which I’m sure is reasonable for making the feature more user friendly to non-devs. But this begs the question: why would the "ignore file/folder" feature itself be useful to non-devs?
- rovr138 7y ago
  More people can use it, including non-devs. Seems like a win on their side.
cactus2093 7y ago
Now they just need the also much-requested inverse feature, a reliable way to sync files outside of the Dropbox root folder. Useful for app specific config files that often don’t let you choose where to store them. Using symlinks on Mac sort of works but it’s kind of fragile and it’s a pain to remember to set up on a new machine, and on windows there’s no workaround at all. It’s kind of crazy that there are still these low hanging fruit advanced syncing use cases, that would help keep Dropbox’s position as a leader in this crowded space, and they are a multi billion dollar company, but they drag their feet on it for so long. I know they want to keep cranking out mediocre me-too productivity tools that nobody is asking for in case they get lucky and one catches on, but they should really be able to do this too.
- rapunkill 7y ago
  You can use the mklink command to link files since windows 7 https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/131182-create-soft-hard-symbolic-links-windows.html https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/131182-create-soft-hard-...
  - davrosthedalek 7y ago
    All linking tricks are often defeated if the program in question writes to the file. Especially on windows, it's common practice to first write out a new file, if you didn't crash, remove the old file and rename the new file. This breaks the link. I'm not sure if this is also common for config files, but I would not be surprised.
    - Epskampie 7y ago
      Just link the parent folder into dropbox, I do it for savegames all the time. Or switch to resilio sync, it’s great and selfhosted. Unlimited folders can be used.
Ohn0 7y ago
For dropbox, which was mainly a user focused solution to sharing files, this seems like a very unfriendly solution to ignoring files?

oscarpaz 7y ago

This is good to know! On Linux, Dropbox's CLI implements an 'exclude' command that you can apply to certain files/folders. But it doesn't always work. I've had issues especially with Docker volumes, that I set to ignore, but dropbox gets stalled in a endless syncing status... Hope this fixes it!

s9w 7y ago

That seems like an arcane solution, although I'm happy they finally added it

CGamesPlay 7y ago
I think this is a perfectly good technical solution that they haven't built a modern UI for, is all. It's great that under the hood the feature will be easily scriptable using standard OS utilities.
- s9w 7y ago
  Yeah I'm just confused why there is no UI integration. It's not like Dropbox is too light on the UI otherwise.
  - michaelmior 7y ago
    I'm assuming since this is beta they probably guessed enough of the users who want this are technically capable of managing without a UI during testing.

terpua 7y ago

for those using google drive or onedrive, we have ignore rules which supports gitignore syntax -- https://help.insynchq.com/en/articles/3045421-ignore-rules https://help.insynchq.com/en/articles/3045421-ignore-rules note: i'm a co-founder

pottertheotter 7y ago
To clarify, Insync is a client used in place of Backup and Sync / Drive File Stream? Do you have a Linux CLI client? I have a headless Ubuntu server at home that I sync personal files on. Currently using Dropbox but in the process of switching to Google Drive (both a personal and business account) and it seems like there's no good CLI only client for Linux.
- terpua 7y ago
  we have a headless client for insync 1.5.7 but we are adding it also to our laster version: insync 3. we are asking for feedback here -- https://forums.insynchq.com/t/feedback-wanted-insync-3-headless/15488 https://forums.insynchq.com/t/feedback-wanted-insync-3-headl...

karlicoss 7y ago

Obligatory mention of Syncthing, which had .stignore file for a while [0]. It's open source, and you can selfhost in; but the downside comparing to Dropbox is that you won't be able to access your files if your computers are off. [0] https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring.html

bad_user 7y ago
Recommending Syncthing kind of misses the point for many Dropbox users. I want cloud storage that's hosted on infrastructure that's not mine, because I don't trust myself to keep it redundant and up to date, a perpetual security risk. Even if I could setup a local LAN storage device at home and keep it always on and available, it's a nuisance and I don't want it. Even more, when accessing files, I don't necessarily want to download them locally. If I have photos or documents, I want to search them or browse them without downloading entire folders locally. And I browse files on my iPhone quite often too, I need a good iPhone app. My only problem with Dropbox is one of security, as it misses end to end encryption, but then again, the files wouldn't be as accessible if they did that, plus personally I think encryption should be local and app specific for it to be reliable, therefore I'm encrypting (via GPG mostly) the sensitive files that I need to encrypt.

kbumsik 7y ago

Interesting. It's the first time for me to see a use of file attributes in Linux. What are the common use cases of file attributes? Also, I just notice that every files in Dropbox folder has com.dropbox.attributes key with unreadable binary value. Does anyone have an idea about this field?

progval 7y ago
> What are the common use case of file attributes? CephFS (a distributed filesystem) uses them to allow users to control the layout of directories and files, ie. how they are split into chunks and what pool they are stored on; and each pool has its own replication settings. https://docs.ceph.com/docs/mimic/cephfs/file-layouts/ https://docs.ceph.com/docs/mimic/cephfs/file-layouts/
_visgean 7y ago
its dropbox id for each file - useful when you move files around, dropbox client can check the ids with the data on server and decide whether to upload the file or not...
- kbumsik 7y ago
  That is a clever approach to track files. Thanks for info.

treebornfrog 7y ago

Genuine question, why do people here use Dropbox or box when Google drive is far superior?

dot1x 7y ago
Because, to this day, Dropbox is the only cloud storage service that is capable of syncing only the part of a file that was modified. If you have ISOs, zips etc, GDrive will re-upload the entire file while Dropbox will only upload the changed parts. This alone is why I keep using Dropbox.
gtirloni 7y ago
In my case because Dropbox support for Linux is far superior.
- treebornfrog 7y ago
  Fair enough, I guess I should have asked why Mac users prefer dropbox or box.
  - bluebasket 7y ago
    always between mac and windows. i have had better experience with dropbox than drive. in fact, i have all three: onedrive, dropbox, and drive. drive is my least favorite...
Angostura 7y ago
Because it is a much more seamless experience, at least on Mac, where it is properly integrated with Finder?
- treebornfrog 7y ago
  Take a look at Alfred (1). (1)https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
rrreese 7y ago

Angostura 7y ago

OK, this is probably a very dumb question, but I'm trying tio understand the usecase. I put things that I want to sync with Dropbox in /Dropbox and take out things that I don't want to sync. Why would I want to leave things in /Dropbox that I don't want on Dropbox?

marksomnian 7y ago
If you're a Node/JavaScript developer, you might want to keep code in Dropbox, but putting node_modules in there will tank it.
- b3kart 7y ago
  Does it not suggest that node_modules in the source directory isn't a good idea to begin with?
  - gitgud 7y ago
    The project directory would contain everything needed for that project including node_modules (which is generated from the package.json) Every nodejs project is structured this way... node_modules is always sitting next to your src...
  - edanm 7y ago
    It is usually git-ignored, which means it isn't part of the "real" source directory (the one that is shared with other devs). It's a temporary output of the build process, in essence.
- dylan604 7y ago
  I don't use Dropbox, nor am I a Node dev. Why would a node_modules directory tank Dropbox?
  - somehnguy 7y ago
    Because NPM's first operation is to pull in half the internet as modules so you can write 'Hello World' on your webpage. Thats too many files for the Dropbox client to handle.

dropdrive 7y ago

Is there any reason to use dropbox over onedrive? This feature has been in onedrive I believe since Windows 10 release? (Also onedrive has linux clients too so- I use it on Linux itself and the linux client by abraunegg supports this)

bluebasket 7y ago
dropbox is a nicer experience of the three.
kbumsik 7y ago
> Also onedrive has linux clients too But there is a huge gap between official linux support by Dropbox and a thrid-party app. In my experience, Dropbox's syncing experience is generally superior than the others, especially when it comes to file stability. Its history and time machine feature (or folder rewind) is so great.
lifthrasiir 7y ago
YMMV, but Dropbox used to be much, much faster (by at least an order of magnitude) than OneDrive in my region. I don't know the status quo though.
gumby 7y ago
I have had lots of sync problems with one drive (files excluded because of characters in their names, frequent, heavy resyncs). Perhaps you don't see these problems if you use Windows. I wanted to use it as the marginal cost was 0 (already had to have a Word license) but I couldn't rely on it. I don't like Dropbox spraying shrapnel through my mac's UI even though I told it not to, so don't take this as a defense of DB -- it simply sucks less and does the baseline (save my files) better. Which is also my justification for using a Mac (sucks the least of the options available to me).
mrlala 7y ago
Oh god.. Onedrive. First of all, this was about 2-3 years ago.. not sure if things have changed. (1) Onedrive "for business" was completely different than OneDrive personal. It still worked under some archaic office sharepoint or whatever thing to some degree.. so first when I tried to use it there was some terrible path/file limitation (lower than normal windows) and it didn't like some special symbols. So let's ignore that nightmare above, maybe it's changed. (2) Even with onedrive personal and the business version I used.. it COULD NOT manage a lot of files. I mean even 50k-100k files it would just stop working basically. It would just sit there stuck, never do anything etc. On Dropbox we have well over a million files and it works fine. Some chunk of files change all the time and it still works. tl;dr if you have a LOT of files.. Dropbox is the way to go- nothing else I have tried comes even close to it.

kissgyorgy 7y ago

LOL I think Nextcloud has this feature for years already? Such a superior experience compared to Dropbox! I will never look back! Especially now with the next big update: Nextcloud Hub: https://nextcloud.com/ https://nextcloud.com/

Illniyar 7y ago

Will an ignored file be ignored for all devices or just my device? That is, what if I have a file/directory in my dropbox on one device and then another device "ignores" it? would it be ignored everywhere or just in my device? Either way seems like a recipe for a lot of problems. No wonder it took so long to get to it (and it's still in Beta).

gwbas1c 7y ago
Paragraph #2 answers your question: > Once ignored, the file or folder remains where it is in your Dropbox folder and is synced to your computer’s hard drive, but it’s deleted from the Dropbox server and your other devices, can’t be accessed on dropbox.com, and won’t sync to your Dropbox account.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

fyp 7y ago

The dropbox cli already lets you ignore folders. I've have had the following script for many years to ignore node_modules: exclude_folders=$(find . -type d -name "node_modules" | grep -v "node_modules/") echo "Excluding $exclude_folders" dropbox exclude add $exclude_folders dropbox exclude list The feature I want is pattern-based ignore in a .dropboxignore file.

doomrobo 7y ago
This is also true of the GUI. It's called Selective Sync
- dmitshur 7y ago
  I’m finding it hard to understand how this new feature differs from Selective Sync. Is there something this lets one do that couldn’t be done before? Or is it just adding convenience?
  - kbumsik 7y ago
    Try unselect node_modules in Selective Sync for ignoring purpose. Uh-oh, you just deleted node_modules in your machine.
  - jayrhynas 7y ago
    This is kind of the opposite. With Selective Sync, the file exists on Dropbox.com and 0 or more client devices, and each device can choose whether or not to sync the file. The new ignore feature allows a file to exist on one device without being uploaded or synced to other devices.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
gwbas1c 7y ago
I work on a major dropbox competitor. We have the ability to do regex-based ignores, but it's deliberately hidden. (And not part of any regression suite.) As we've optimized the product, regexes would cause a huge performance problem. Why? Part of our optimization includes representing paths in an optimized data structure. In order to process the regex, each path would need to be converted back to its full string, which is computationally "expensive" when working with 20,000 or more files and folders.

gwbas1c 7y ago

I worked on a sync product that had this feature "forever." The problem with the "ignore" feature is that it creates corner cases in almost every use case we add. A huge amount of engineering resources goes into this feature, even though its only used by a minority of users. A big problem comes with un-ignoring a file / folder, specifically if someone else has gone and added the same file / folder on another computer or in the web. The only way to make that use case work smoothly is to basically read minds, because there's no way to know which version of the file / folder is the right one.

yunruse 7y ago
Sync conflicts are never fun, but from personal experience programs that attempt to auto-resolve them aren’t exactly letting the user in on what’s going on. The best way to make that work in that case would be to explicitly inform the user when unignoring of the conflict and ask which to keep (showing metadata etc). A quick “retain other version” would help if the user was unsure.
- gwbas1c 7y ago
  All I can say is: That's easier said than done. Dropbox's implementation has no UI, building such a wizard is probably much more complicated than they anticipated! I've always advocated for wizards like that, but everyone gets enamored with building the next shiny feature. Some days I wonder if I should just quit and make an open source sync product... And if I'd actually make a living doing it!

joeblau 7y ago

Could they make it work like git? Then all of the templates hosted by https://gitignore.io https://gitignore.io would work!

rmah 7y ago

I have never understood why dropbox refuses to allow folders other than "Dropbox" to be sync'ed. It mystifies me and keeps me from using it.

auto 7y ago
Kinda feels like a dark pattern in order to get Dropbox to be your "filesystem". Can't lie, I've been a dropbox user since nearly the very beginning, and a paid user for longer than I can remember, and it does kinda fill this purpose for me. Application and platform specific things live outside of my Dropbox directory, but everything personal, work, and school related document wise lives in it, as well as a mostly unsynced folder that holds the backlog archive of my entire digital life, to the tune of ~400gb.

binichgross 7y ago

Well, better late than never.

paulcnichols 7y ago

Rejoice!

brian_herman__ 7y ago

It would be cool to make a file that would be globally ignored with all syncing services so it couldn't be uploaded. Though I do not think this is possible.

dpcan 7y ago

Fantastic!!! Will definitely go back to Dropbox when this feature is available. Recently I switched to OneDrive, also no ignore that I can find, but I'm only making extra copies of stuff in there that I want backed up to the cloud.

CodeWriter23 7y ago
Did OneDrive finally lift the 20,000 hard limit on the total number of files?

bad_user 7y ago

Are these settings persisted on their server? Does Dropbox know to not sync those files on a new computer, or do you have to set those settings everywhere? If not, if this works like Selective Sync (which is a local setting), then you can end up accidentally syncing those files from new computers. And is thus not equivalent with a .gitignore. Also does it support glob patterns? Why couldn't they do a .gitignore that syncs along with your other Dropbox files and be done with it?

mah_man 7y ago
On a side note, you really are true to your name!

wtmt 7y ago

While the instructions go to a level of detail with the assumption that the person typing these commands may not be familiar with them, I don’t get why there are no instructions on this page to revert ignoring a file or folder so that it starts syncing to Dropbox again.

veeralpatel979 7y ago

It's unfortunate that as startups get larger, the speed of improvement on their product often gets slower. It's strange to me that Dropbox has thousands of employees, people have wanted this for a _long_ time, and yet this hasn't been built. You'd think that with more engineering/PM/design talent the product would get better, and faster. Anyone have any insight into why happens? I've never worked at a early stage startup but here are some hypotheses: - Maybe this is a good thing. After a product is "done", adding more functionality makes it worse, not better. - Maybe the company leadership's focus shifts from building a great product to scaling as fast as possible. And doing both at once isn't possible. - Maybe the engineering division grows substantially, but the number of people actually working on the product doesn't change much. Instead the new engineers work on important, but auxiliary things, like dev tooling, security, infra, ops, etc - Maybe developing features takes longer because there's more process: security/legal/ops needs to review it, several layers of management need to approve it, it needs to work in multiple countries, etc - Maybe the urgency to keep improving your product disappears after you feel that you've made it - Maybe it's more important to take longer to build stable, complete features instead of shipping as fast as possible

franze 7y ago
Overhiring. Individual productivity goes down the more the company hires. At one point big software companies are only big because they can afford to be big. I wrote about it here https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/overhiring-b966a6ff383d?source=friends_link&sk=2c4e3013c14534e1ec9a7f464da6be80 https://medium.com/@franz.enzenhofer/overhiring-b966a6ff383d...
- veeralpatel979 7y ago
  I read this somewhere on HN: if your company has $1 million in ARR with 3 people, you'll likely feel need to hire more people, even if the 3 people get the job done. Now repeat this with $1 billion in ARR...you get the picture. I've seen "Bullshit Jobs" recommended here on HN [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs
twblalock 7y ago

nvr219 7y ago

Mazal tov

andy9775 7y ago

can I do a pattern based ignore, to ignore a specific folder in all subfolders? Dropbox//node_modules/ or similar?

azhenley 7y ago

I recently wrote a blog post about another feature I have been wishing Dropbox would add. Looks like it won't be happening anytime soon... "Hey Dropbox, why can't I compare file versions like this?" http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/whycanticomparefileversions.html http://web.eecs.utk.edu/~azh/blog/whycanticomparefileversion...

dkobia 7y ago

FYI I tried this feature out a few months ago and found it to be useless for build folders. Extended attributes (xattr) get lost everytime you recreate a file/folder - think 'build', 'node_modules' etc. Additionally Dropbox broke selective sync which is even more infuriating. All this combined means my hard drive is running all the time.