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The ignore folder feature is not working.

I can confirm that I'm seeing the same behavior that @cabreu described: ignored folders don't get synced BUT the dropbox app continues to monitor them anyway and performs some level of processing whenever files are added/removed/edited from inside ignored folders 😩

Unfortunately this all but defeats the purpose of an "ignore" feature for many of us. We need dropbox to truly ignore (i.e. do not react to changes within) certain folders to preserve system resources.

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Fiona

Hello @rjclardy.

I created a new topic for discussion for you and @cabreu., to answer to your question.

Let's see why files could be syncing while ignored. The ignore folder feature, has the file/folder you chose Dropbox to ingore, synced to the device you set this up with, but will remove it from dropbox.com or any other devices you have.

Syncing is expected for this folder to be removed from your other devices. Is this the syncing you are referring to?

You can find all the information you need for this beta Dropbox syncing feature below.

:books: How to set a Dropbox file to be ignored

Let me know what you see syncing exactly and any other questions you might have.

Thank you!

rjclardy

Thanks for responding! But no, I'm not talking about the syncing responsible for removing the folder from other devices. Here are the steps I took...

Created a new, empty folder named "foobar".
Marked it as ignored and waited for the Dropbox app to finish syncing.
1. Confirmed that the icon was changed to a gray minus sign and that the folder isn't on other devices.
Added a new file named "foo.txt" to the ignored folder.
1. At this point, I see the Dropbox icon start spinning and it says it is "Syncing foo.txt..."
2. I then confirmed that the file's icon was a gray minus sign and the file wasn't added to other devices.
Edited the foo.txt file.
1. Again, I saw the icon start spinning and Dropbox said it was syncing a file.
2. Again, confirmed that the file wasn't added to other devices.
Removed the foo.txt file.
1. Again, I saw the icon start spinning and Dropbox said it was syncing a file.

So the new feature is properly preventing ignored files/folders from being synced to other devices... but the Dropbox app still reacts to the fact that something changed inside the ignored folder. I can't tell for sure obviously, but it looks like it processes the file that was changed and then decides not to sync it to other devices — instead of actually ignoring any changes within the ignored folder altogether.

So this feature seems to be more of a "do not sync this folder to other devices" feature instead of an "ignore this folder" feature.

And unfortunately, it looks like that won't solve the scenario that many of us have been requesting this feature for. I'm a software developer and there are often folders that have thousands of files in them that get updated very frequently while I'm developing. When Dropbox tries to process all of those changes it eats up a ton of my computer's resources. So what I need is to be able to tell Dropbox to completely ignore a folder by not monitoring/processing any changes that happen to the files inside of it.

Fiona

I so very much appreciate your feedback about this beta feature of ours @rjclardy.

Would it be OK if I send you an email to get some visuals of this behavior, a screencast reproducing the issue you are facing to have a further look into this?

What version of the desktop app, do you have installed there?

rjclardy

Sure. I'm using v87.4.138.

Jane

Thanks for keeping in touch here @rjclardy; it’s Jane this time!

I’ve sent you a brief message through our support system following-up from your discussion with Fiona here. Please have a look at your inbox when you have some spare time & we’ll take it from there to see if what you’re experiencing is expected in any way &/or if there’a a way to improve that.

I look forward to hearing back from you!

leonardacs

I have the same problem too, in Ubuntu 18.04, v87.4.138.

In the previous version, this feature worked perfectly.

Any solution?

Fiona

Thanks for reporting and for the additional information @leonardacs.

I would like to check a few things that are related to device details. Is it OK if I email you to investigate before we suggest a solution?

Thank you!

XionicFire

Guys youve known about this for six months, this problem is still up, we need a fix, its a useability breaking problem, and im on windows using a business license with 100 users, not linux.

Before you guys decided to make mandatory that dropbox cannot selective sync and ignore a folder i could just selective sync it away, create it and all would be well, but you removed that and now im forced to hack/modify stuff to try to get my work done.

You added the ignore function and i said ok they broke something but they added a workaround, not ideal but ok, however it still checks for any files inside the folder for changes.. every..single...time... , and takes the same amount of time as if i had synced them, might as well just let it do it.

It doesnt TRULLY ignore the folder, and its a folder that continuously handles hundreds of thousands of files, our github repository log file folder contains 756,000+ files... i do not need to dropbox those files, nor to "index" them... thanks to you I can no longer selective sync it away, because i need to be able to see those logs, and i cannot remove the folder from dropbox because others need it synced in real time , every time our database decides to create dump logs or compile logs, my dropbox becomes unusable, i have to CTRL-ALT-DEL hard close it, and restart it, sometimes it ignores the files, other times it does not and i need to reset my machine

I set this folder on ignore specifically for this purpose.

Also, while the program is running, even tho the databases EXE file is clearly marked as ignore, dropbox tries to sync it, and says "unable to sync XXXX.EXE, file is in use", hanging all my other sync queue files until i close the database, this is just ridiculous.

Please fix this, its not that complicated.

If folder/file has ignore file then dont sync AND do not include this file/folder in the indexing database, its not rocket science.

Ravenix83

I'm having this exact issue. Dropbox still tries to interrogate ignored files before deciding not to do anything with them. If I've marked a folder to be ignored, I would expect no Dropbox activity to take place in that folder or its subfolders. This is causing a major headache as alot of temporary files are written to this location and Dropbox is interfering/monitoring these files despite being flagged as ignore.

For clarity it pertains to folders which have been flagged as ignored via folder attributes. e.g. via powershell

Set-Content -Path 'Full\Path\Here'  -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1

This is as per https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files

kevinlb

I have exactly this problem too; Windows 10, dropbox 106.4.368. I marked the folder as ignored in powershell, I get a gray minus sign on the folder, but CPU resources are consumed indexing the files every time they change. (Another weird thing: I got an email warning me about mass deletion of these files and asking if I want them to be undeleted, even though they were supposed to be ignored.)

ChrisC_

I'm also having this problem. The folder contains temporary files used by an application I use everyday. It seems the application changes the name of these temporary files each time it starts which causes dropbox to try syncing them but get stuck at `Indexing 9 files... Can't sync "file name" (file is in use)` until I'm finished using the application. I've been working around this by rerunning the powershell command to mark the new file names as ignored. Then pausing and resuming syncing to break it out of the file it's stuck on.

Set-Content -Path 'Path\to\folder' -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1

It's annoying doing this everyday. Please fix this issue.

Lusil

Hey @ChrisC_ - thanks for nudging us on this thread.

In general, the desktop app tries to make sure that file/folder permissions for items in your Dropbox folder are consistent throughout your account.

For this reason, pausing the desktop app while you work on a file that has temporary files associated with it and resuming it after you've completed the changes is the best way to go about this.

However, I understand where you're coming from and thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us.

If you have any other questions in the meantime, just give us another shout. Cheers!

ChrisC_

Hi Lusil,

Thanks for the response. Just to clarify, the program creating these temporary files is sublime text. I store it in dropbox so my settings and environment are shared between the computers I use it on. I only use it on one PC at a time but I keep it here for when I switch PCs. While I'm working, I also want the other files in dropbox to sync between my computers. I usually have sublime text open the entire time I'm working since I'm a software developer and use it as my main editor. Pausing syncing while I run sublime text means I need to look for another way to sync the other files in my dropbox while I'm working.

I've had a few more days to pay closer attention to how it behaves since my original post. It always get stuck syncing the locked file. I always need to pause and resume syncing after it gets stuck. What isn't as consistent is what I see when I look at this folder again in Dropbox. Some of the time it will remember the ignored setting (Dropbox Desktop still shows the (-) icon on the folder). In this case, pausing and resuming is all that's needed. Some of the time it will act like the folder hasn't been ignored (Dropbox Desktop does not show the (-) icon on the folder). In this case, I reignore the folder and pause/resume syncing to fix it.

Jay

Hi @ChrisC_, due to the nature of temporary files, they are constantly in use by the specific app until it is released, where the file is usually deleted.

If multiple files are created, and are in use by the app, then the Dropbox desktop application wouldn't be able to sync these files until the lock was released. You could use the PowerShell command, or the Dropbox app to ignore the files, but if the name is changed each time, then you'd need to ignore the file each time.

Aside from this, if you wish, you can suggest this change for others to vote on, so the dev team can look into a better method for the future.

SoundsSerious

Also experiencing this Issue.

I'm a engineer who uses dropbox to sync files between my computers teammates computers when i'm on the go all the time. Its not uncommon for me to create a diskcache in a folder that also stores code.

Today for example I am using 20 working processes to cache information into a folder in dropbox that has been ignored. The dropbox app is crashing still monitoring these files. I have different versions of this cache on my different computers but they still appear to be syncing them together causing "Ignored Item Conflict".

This feature needs to actually ignore all references inside that folder for it to work properly for your power users. There's some database on DB's side with all these file path references. Upon an Ignored request, you should just drop them. If your solution requires the command line you should assume I know what i'm doing and actually fully endorce the ignore request.

For what youre doing now you could accomplish it much easier with an Ignore-Light feature by just creating a hiden file '.dropbox_ignore', which could maintain references to it across file systems. But for power users you absolutely need to give them something to fully ignore a folder. There's stuff we're doing you might not be able to design around so give us the tools to properly use dropbox.

Thanks!

ChrisC_

For others finding this thread with the same issue and wanting a fix, please reference https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-ideas/Ignore-folder-without-selective-sync/idi-p/5926.

saunders

As of November 30, 2021 this is still a problem. Dropbox is currently throwing errors on sync because it cannot sync a locked file that is within an ignored folder.

teadrinker

I'm having an issue on windows 10, files can be ignored, but not folders.
I tried running as admin, both relative and full paths, and with and without trailing backslash
For folders, I always get this error:

Set-Content : Could not open the alternate data stream 'com.dropbox.ignored'

+ Set-Content -Path Library -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Set-Content], FileNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.IO.FileNotFoundException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SetContentCommand

Megan

Hi @teadrinker, welcome to our Community!

Is your Dropbox app up to date?

Also, have you made sure your command is correct?

example: Clear-Content -Path 'C:\Users\yourname\Dropbox(Personal)\YourFileName.pdf' -Stream com.dropbox.ignored

teadrinker

Hello Megan!
Yes, I just updated the app.

I am Using:

Set-Content -Path Library\ -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1

(I've tried both relative and full 'quoted' paths, and with and without trailing backslash. I also tried :com.dropbox.ignored and user.com.dropbox.ignored etc)

Again, ignore feature works on files, but not directories.

Megan

Thank you for your speedy reply, @teadrinker!

Would it be okay for me to reach out via email in order for us to have a look?

teadrinker

Sure! there is a ticket already: 15924600

Megan

Thank you for the ticket number reference, @teadrinker!

I can see that your case has been sent to our Specialized agents in order for them to investigate.

Hold tight, and they should reply back to you soon, letting you know more about the next steps you'd need to take.

If you need anything else, don't hesitate to let me know.

darius00klokj

Not sure if you still have this issue, but for those using Dropbox and Git repos, you can init outside of the project folder using:

git init --separate-git-dir /outside/of/dropbox/mygit-project.git

Hope it helps

aplowman

What worked for me was adding an asterisk after the directory name:

Set-Content -Path Library\* -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1

jamievicary

I still have this issue. Is there an update? Looks like this has been a problem for years now.

Dragorion

@teadrinker wrote:
I'm having an issue on windows 10, files can be ignored, but not folders.
I tried running as admin, both relative and full paths, and with and without trailing backslash
For folders, I always get this error:

Set-Content : Could not open the alternate data stream 'com.dropbox.ignored'

+ Set-Content -Path Library -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Set-Content], FileNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.IO.FileNotFoundException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SetContentCommand

I had this issue for folders with the 'R' attribute (which they have, for example, when they were configured to show a custom icon).

The solution is to 1. unset 'R', 2. ignore directory, and 3. reset 'R'.

I created a .bat file for execution in such folders that I want to be ignored by Dropbox:

attrib -r "%cd%"
powershell -command "Set-Content -Path \"%cd%\" -Stream com.dropbox.ignored -Value 1"
attrib +r "%cd%"
pause

And to unignore:

attrib -r "%cd%"
powershell -command "Clear-Content -Path \"%cd%\" -Stream com.dropbox.ignored"
attrib +r "%cd%"
pause

Megan

Hey @jamievicary, I hope you're doing well!

Just to make sure we're on the same page here: are these the steps you follow on your end when trying to ignore a file/folder?

Do you have any problems or come across any errors when trying them out?

Let me know more, and we'll take it from there!