Add .dropboxignore directory to exclude folders without using selective sync

Thanks for asking: Yes, I am still having the same problem. parent.lock is being indexed. parent.lock cannot be synchronized because access was denied. (Translation of German terms.) I would so much love to tell Dropbox not to try to synchronize this file.

Yeah, this is an issue and I'm surprised there isn't more uproar (or information, for that matter) about it.

I just tried setting up Dropbox as my profile for Thunderbird so I could use it across multiple computers and the file "parent.lock" which is created by Tbird when you first start it up prevents DB from syncing properly. It ALSO (much worse) prevents TBird from deleting it properly when it exits (not quite sure why this happens -- I'll try turning DB syncing off and see if that makes a difference, but even if so that's not an acceptable solution in any way shape or form).

Quite honestly I don't know how folks are even using DB with Thunderbird, unless they just don't care if DB is synced properly, but I can't find much information about this anywhere (other than the problem is noted, time and time again).

Sigh. Okay, Christian, I figured out how to do this (but it isn't intuitive and it really still ought to be added to DB.

Here are the steps to take to make DB selective sync a file (it's a bit of a kludge but let's hope DB never removes it):

To exclude FILES, not folders, from Dropbox, there is a trick you can do:

Move the file somewhere else

Create a folder with the same name in place of the file

Go to Dropbox selective sync options and ignore the folder, this will also delete it

Move the file back in place

I got this from a superuser forum and it makes sense -- and in some way I understand why DB works like this. But it would be SO much easier if DB just had an option when you right clicked a file in your folder (either in the desktop app or the browser app) where you could choose not to have that particular file synced without having to go through this process.

Mike, you are the champion! This was a really great advice. It works perfectly. Thank you very much!

Well, I appreciate the thanks, but the superuser who figured this out deserves the credit (I unfortunately wasn't able to thank HIM since the forum he posted on doesn't even allow comments or thanks until you've been a member for quite some time, and that ain't gonna happen for me). But I'm glad I could pass it on and let's hope that others will find the solution as well.

+1 for this feature. Would be nice if we can exclude files by using filters.

I have some Word documents on my dropbox. When I edit the file, Word creates a temporary file which is also sync'd and not deleted when I close the file again.

Wouldn't replacing the files with a folder (titled the same) change how other members of the shared folder view the folder? They would then too just see empty folders instead of the actual file, no?

If you're talking about using the workaround I mentioned, no, you don't leave that folder in place.  As I noted, you just temporarily create such a folder and then exclude it.  Dropbox automatically deletes that folder.

It's a PITA, though, so Dropbox really needs to include this capability.