How do I get rid of empty folder tree stubs?

[bege]

I sync a folder tree /*/*/data/abcd/*/*.* with this .stignore on an Android device with recive-only folder:

!*/abcd/*
*

the source is a send-and-receive folder on a Windows computer that is synced with another Android device with no exclusions. The destination is the Android device with the mentioned receive-only folder.

As expected this results in syncing only trees to the receive-only folder if they contain a folder abcd

But if a tree is deleted on the source there remains remains an empty tree /*/*/data on the destination. Adding (?d) to .stignore (?d)!*/abcd/* doesn’t change the behavior. I also tried it with (?d)!*/data/abcd/*.

How do I get rid of the empty folder tree stubs?

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

Syncthing won’t delete those directories as it’s not tracking them, because they’re ignored. I don’t think there’s a way to get Syncthing to do that currently.

[tomasz86]

I would need to experiment with the specific patterns myself to be 100% sure, but I think you could try playing around with the same type of hackery as shown in these two threads:

• https://forum.syncthing.net/t/adding-the-ignore-condition-only-files-can-be-deleted-but-folders-cannot-be-deleted/18305
• https://forum.syncthing.net/t/empty-folders-left-behind-ignore-pattern-issue/18761

[bege]

Thank you very much! Though I don’t understand it fully this seems to work in my case. At least I didn’t find any empty folders any more and I hope that it did not delete to many.

!*/data/abcd/*
(?d)*/*/

[cosas]

Why no set the root of your receive-only folder to abcd instead of data? Then no need of ignore pattern around abcd nor ignore everything else (*).

Only usual (?d)** to remove directories with remaining “OS generated files” as stated in the doc.

[calmh (Jakob Borg)]

Keep in mind also that (?d) doesn’t mean delete for cleanup, only “delete if it’s in the way when anyway deleting the parent directory for some reason”.

[bege]

The root is not data but two levels below. There are many folders addressed by \*\*\. I was wrong when I posted that there was too much deleted. I missed files in the source folder. But because the Android device has only a receive only folder it can not have deleted files in the source folder. So the posted ignore pattern works in this case with a receive only folder on one end.