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Control selective sync programmatically

Hello,

I'm looking for a way to control selective sync programmatically? There's a certain folder I want to sync, for example, in certain hours of the day. With a cron job, I could instruct selective sync to include/exclude a folder.

Is this possible? Can you make it possible?

Thanks!

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Comments

Leah C.1

I think you might be able to do this via the Dropbox Core API.

The trick would be to not sync the folder via the desktop client (by unselecting it using selective sync). Then, with your cron job, maybe check if any files need to be updated and use the /files_put method to update any changed files.

Does that sound like what you're looking for?

Steve M.

If you're asking about whether you can control the "selective sync" feature of the Dropbox desktop client programmatically, the answer is no. We don't provide an API to control the behavior of the desktop client.

jeff o.4

is there a way to tell the dropbox client to ignore certain directories and/or files in a manner similar to a .gitignore file?

sometimes i create numerous temporary files within a directory that is sync'd via dropbox and i'd like to be able to tell the client to not bother syncing the temp files.

of course, i can do this via the client's preferences panel, but this is onerous at best. being able to do so from the command-line would be awesome.

thanks!

Greg-DB

There still isn't a programmatic interface for controlling Selective Sync settings like this, but we're tracking it as a feature request.

jeff o.4

thanks gregory.

i'm using macos and dug around to see if dropbox stores the list of directories to skip in a local plist but didn't find anything.

do you know if there's a way to use the macos "defaults" system to configure the skipped directories?

Greg-DB

I don't think it works like that, but unfortunately even if the list is accessible locally somewhere, we can't recommend or support attempting to modify it like that, as it wouldn't be an officially supported interface.

Talmo P.

Any updates on providing any sort of interface for managing selective sync? It's insanely cumbersome to click through to the Selective Sync window and then the directory tree...

Greg-DB

No update on this.

Adam l.11

Hey Gregory. Thanks for posting. Really appreciate the tools and cross-device sync. They've made my life a ton simpler in most cases.

You mention tracking the issue as a feature request. Is there a canonical place to vote for it? I upvoted this thread. It appears to be one of many threads that reference a similar issue. I wonder if the different threads are diluting its priority.

My particular use case that many other devs also struggle with: As a dev, one command like "npm install" can generate thousands of tiny files in an auto-generated directory called "node_modules". When I type "npm install", Dropbox goes into an indexing and syncing phase. I smack my forehead and say "Dropbox!! No!! Don't sync all those!!!" but it's too late. I have to wait for 10all those tiny files to sync before I can even use selective sync on the node_modules directory.

A second use case, happening right now, is that Dropbox is getting in the way of working. I just deleted a bunch of those directories, well over 400,000 files (which I would have ignored programmatically) that I created before I used dropbox, and dropbox has been syncing/indexing for over 24 hours. That's fine. However, I can't create a new folder ignored with selective sync because selective sync won't show new folders when it's still trying to sync/index other deleted ones. Spending a lot of time on workarounds. Any suggestions on how to get selective sync to see new folders before it's done syncing would be appreciated.

Anyway. Thanks again. Appreciate all your work and your responsiveness on this thread!

Adam

Greg-DB

Thanks for the detailed feedback Adam! We don't have another place to vote on these requests; your post here is fine. Unfortunately I don't have a good solution to offer you though. Apologies I don't have any news!

Jason R. C.

I also would like this feature to avoid syncing other suppert files like tox virtual environments.

b9chris

This is my #1 problem with Dropbox. Either:

1. It's on while coding in Visual Studio, which constantly breaks the application while running and continually causes files I'm not editing to prompt me for reload. It occasionally corrupts my work, swapping in a slightly older version of a file I was just working on.

2. It's off while coding, which is the majority of my day, eliminating the real-time backup benefits of Dropbox.

3. It's off Selective Sync for my code folder, which is just 2 again

4. I Selective Sync every single scratch folder Visual Studio uses, every single bin and obj folder throughout my machine, which is at least 500 folders and increases over time as I take on new projects.

It's been 5 years of this. It's time for Dropbox to adopt a .gitignore style file. Heck just give me literally that file and name it .dropboxignore

Jonathan L.24

I'd like to see this too.

IvanSt

Need this functionality so much..

stege

@Leah C.1 wrote:
I think you might be able to do this via the Dropbox Core API.
The trick would be to not sync the folder via the desktop client (by unselecting it using selective sync). Then, with your cron job, maybe check if any files need to be updated and use the /files_put method to update any changed files.
Does that sound like what you're looking for?

stege

@jeff o.4 wrote:
is there a way to tell the dropbox client to ignore certain directories and/or files in a manner similar to a .gitignore file?
sometimes i create numerous temporary files within a directory that is sync'd via dropbox and i'd like to be able to tell the client to not bother syncing the temp files.
of course, i can do this via the client's preferences panel, but this is onerous at best. being able to do so from the command-line would be awesome.
thanks!

philip-lf

Hey Greg, any update on a selective sync API or dropbox ignore file? thanks

Greg-DB

No, I don't have an update on this.

blizzrdof77

This would be extremely useful. Any progress @Greg-DB?

Greg-DB

@blizzrdof77 No, unfortunately I don't have any news on this request.

mm_POC

Does Dropbox not see the need for this ? This seems like a somewhat basic request for something to control with an API...why is this a multi year request with many articles, requests and workarounds?

Seems like most of us are needing to work around "node_modules" or other dev temp files...

Greg-DB

@mm_POC Thanks for the feedback! I can't offer insight as to any why any particular feature was or wasn't implemented, but I'll send this along to the team.

dorival

We definitively need to ignore node_modules. I have a script for this on Linux but cannot exclude files on macOS... too bad

Kieran360

Any news on when or if this feature will be added? It's been five years of people asking. Why doesn't dropbox have somewhere we can request features?

Greg-DB

@Kieran360 Thanks for your post! Unfortunately I don't have any news on if or when Dropbox may decide to implement and release the ability to programmatically control the selective sync feature. We appreciate the feedback though, and forum posts like this are a good place to send feature requests.

b9chris

Dropbox: We're waiting for your community feedback!

Community: (provides feedback)

Dropbox: lol

Kieran360

"Forum posts like this are a good place to send feature requests"? Fourteen people have asked for this feature over five years and there's no intention on the part of dropbox to develop it. I'd be better off writing a letter to Santa.

I've been a dropbox customer for nine years and I can say that dropbox absolutely do not care what people who use dropbox actually want, so long as the money keeps rolling in.

ivanrinaldo

It's 2021 - Any update on this function? My team of over 15 people are very interested in this!

Greg-DB

@ivanrinaldo No, unfortunately I don't have an update on this request.

dwcapture

Yeah, this and several other requests are vital feature developments, but complex to integrate, requiring considerable effort.

Hmm, let's give it a little more time. To be reasonable, I'd say check back in about 15 years.

I'm sure by then they will be taken seriously and implemented. 🙂