What is the definitive way to ignore with trashy OS files like DS_Store?

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1

Hello,

There are many threads on ignore patterns and dealing with DS_Store files and similar trashy OS files that I just don’t want to sync at all, but I’m struggling to find a consistent solution. So the tl;dr version of my post is asking the following:

  • What is the definitive way to ignore these files and avoid ‘out of sync’ issues? I have read some suggestions of ‘global ignore’ patterns that can work across devices, or across netowrks of devices? Not sure this is implemented yet?
  • What ignore patterns should I use (see below)?
  • Should the ignore pattern be the same across all 3 of my devices?

Details:

I have a 3 device setup:

Windows

Mac

NAS (Open Media Vault on a Raspberry Pi)

SyncThing working well, except having the trashy OS files sync between my Mac and Windows - DS_Store is the main cultprit.

I am generally using the NAS as the the kind of ‘host’ ie: it’s pretty much on all the time so I don’t need to have both my Mac and Windows necessarily on to sync up.

Is this a good ignore list?

I am still finding the (?d) quite confusing but it seems this is what should be prefixed for these kind of trash OS files.

(?d).DS_Store
(?d).Spotlight-V100
(?d).Trashes
(?d)desktop.ini
(?d)Thumbs.db

Should this pattern be what I should be using on all 3 devices? Initially I was putting this ignore list on the NAS only but was still running into out of sync issues. Some forum searching suggests that I should have consistent (ie: the same) ignore patterns across all 3 of my devices.

Thanks in advance of help!

2

Theoretically, you only need to add each specific pattern on a device that generates those files. However, I personally find it easier to just use the same patterns everywhere (for temporary files, that is, as you do want to use different patterns, e.g. when you only want to sync part of the folder to the device in question, etc.)

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Ok thanks. Something else I forgot to add is that I haven’t shared the folders with all 3 devices, ie: I’m sharing windows to NAS, and Mac to NAS, whereas I haven’t shared Mac to Windows via synthing. I figured there’d be no need as I’m using the NAS as host but maybe it’s better to have all 3 devices sharing with each other?

Do I have the ignore patterns correct by the way? ie with the ‘(?d)’?

4

I’m a big fan of creating a shared ignore file — I call it common-stignore.txt and syncing it.

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5

Ok thanks. Am I correct to use (?d) as a prefix for these files?

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Yes, and the Docs also recommend doing just that (see the explanation on (?d) at https://docs.syncthing.net/users/ignoring).

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7

Hello, thanks for this. I’ve been experimenting with this but I can only have a global ignore .txt file list sync across multiple devices per folder, but not across all devices and all folders, right?

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It IS possible to #include a file outside of the folder. See #include Outside the Synced Folder? - #2 by calmh .

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Ok thanks. Not sure I’m seeing a straight forward way to sync ingore pattern across multiple devices and multiple folders then. I see there’s some feature requests for that tho so will see what future brings.

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You can have the global ignore file in one folder, so that it is shared with other devices. Then reference it using ../../some path/.stignore-global" from the other folders.

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Ah I see (with each /../ indicating up a directory)? I think this will work for most my cases though I think I have one instance where I’m sharing a folder in a different drive letter on my windows machine. I could probably start setting up symlinks but I’m not sure the layers of complexity are worth the reward. Thanks all for your help with this!

EDIT: Actually the one instance where a symlink was required, was straight forward so (I think!) this now works perfectly! Thanks again!

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