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.
Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
81–90 of 143 posts
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#82OK, 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?
This is the same question as why .gitignore files exists. You probably want to leave build files unsynced in your project folder.
The primary purpose of my project folder is to contain my project, including source, dependencies, build output, etc - so it makes sense to me that tools like Git allow you to exclude/ignore parts of it.
But the primary purpose of the Dropbox folder is to sync stuff to Dropbox. The idea that I would put something in my Dropbox folder that I didn't want to sync is bizarre.
It sounds like it's a common case where people put their project folders inside their Dropbox folder. Before today it never occurred to me that anybody would do that.
I do have some projects I periodically Git Bundle into a Dropbox folder though.
Not criticizing anybody's workflow, just surprised it's so common.
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the same question as why .gitignore files exists. You probably want to leave build files unsynced in your project folder.
The primary purpose of my project folder is to contain my project, including source, dependencies, build output, etc - so it makes sense to me that tools like Git allow you to exclude/ignore parts of it. But the primary purpose of the Dropbox folder is to sync stuff to Dropbox. The idea that I would put something in my Dropbox folder that I didn't want to sync is bizarre. It sounds like it's a common case where peopl…
Its so I can have my computer burn down, and set up another one, install Dropbox, and continue work uninterrupted.
Hey! This person has a way: https://superuser.com/questions/469776/how-to-exclude-files-...
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#84The 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.
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 the…
You can use the mklink command to link files since windows 7
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/131182-create-soft-hard-...
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 the…
You can use the mklink command to link files since windows 7 https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/131182-create-soft-hard-...
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.
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#86Genuine question, why do people here use Dropbox or box when Google drive is far superior?
The Google Drive app is terrible, eats your battery, is limited to three accounts per device and does not work on Linux.
HOWEVER, there is Insync, which is cheap, works on all OS I care about and supports pattern-based sync exclusions, anyone here has experience with it?
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#87Is 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)
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).
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Who needs a VCS when you could just use Dropbox?
Why use Dropbox if you could just use FTP + SVN/CVS? [1] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
I did exactly that: https://github.com/mickael-kerjean/filestash
As a side effect, it even supports .gitignore!
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#89OK, 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?
If you're a Node/JavaScript developer, you might want to keep code in Dropbox, but putting node_modules in there will tank it.
I don't use Dropbox, nor am I a Node dev. Why would a node_modules directory tank Dropbox?
Re: Dropbox ignore file or folder in beta
#90Well, better late than never.