1SYNCTHING-STIGNORE(5) Syncthing SYNCTHING-STIGNORE(5)
2
6 syncthing-stignore - Prevent files from being synchronized to other
7 nodes
8
10 .stignore
11
13 If some files should not be synchronized to (or from) other devices, a
14 file called .stignore can be created containing file patterns to
15 ignore. The .stignore file must be placed in the root of the folder.
16 The .stignore file itself will never be synced to other devices,
17 although it can #include files that are synchronized between devices.
18 All patterns are relative to the folder root. The contents of the
19 .stignore file must be UTF-8 encoded.
20 NOTE:
22 Note that ignored files can block removal of an otherwise empty
23 directory. See below for the (?d) prefix to allow deletion of
24 ignored files.
25
27 The .stignore file contains a list of file or path patterns. The first
28 pattern that matches will decide the fate of a given file.
29 · Regular file names match themselves, i.e. the pattern foo matches the
31 files foo, subdir/foo as well as any directory named foo. Spaces are
32 treated as regular characters.
33 · Asterisk matches zero or more characters in a filename, but does not
35 match the directory separator. te*st matches test, subdir/telerest
36 but not tele/rest.
37 · Double asterisk matches as above, but also directory separators.
39 te**st matches test, subdir/telerest and tele/sub/dir/rest.
40 · Question mark matches a single character that is not the directory
42 separator. te??st matches tebest but not teb/st or test.
43 · Characters enclosed in square brackets [] are interpreted as a char‐
45 acter range [a-z]. Before using this syntax you should have a basic
46 understanding of regular expression character classes.
47 · A pattern beginning with / matches in the current directory only.
49 /foo matches foo but not subdir/foo.
50 · A pattern beginning with #include results in loading patterns from
52 the named file. It is an error for a file to not exist or be included
53 more than once. Note that while this can be used to include patterns
54 from a file in a subdirectory, the patterns themselves are still rel‐
55 ative to the folder root. Example: #include more-patterns.txt.
56 · A pattern beginning with a ! prefix negates the pattern: matching
58 files are included (that is, not ignored). This can be used to over‐
59 ride more general patterns that follow.
60 · A pattern beginning with a (?i) prefix enables case-insensitive pat‐
62 tern matching. (?i)test matches test, TEST and tEsT. The (?i) prefix
63 can be combined with other patterns, for example the pattern
64 (?i)!picture*.png indicates that Picture1.PNG should be synchronized.
65 On Mac OS and Windows, patterns are always case-insensitive.
66 · A pattern beginning with a (?d) prefix enables removal of these files
68 if they are preventing directory deletion. This prefix should be used
69 by any OS generated files which you are happy to be removed.
70 · A line beginning with // is a comment and has no effect.
72 · Windows does not support escaping \[foo - bar\].
74 NOTE:
76 Prefixes can be specified in any order (e.g. “(?d)(?i)”), but cannot
77 be in a single pair of parentheses (not “(?di)”).
78 NOTE:
80 Include patterns (that begin with !) cause Syncthing to traverse and
81 watch the entire directory tree regardless of other ignore patterns.
82
84 Given a directory layout:
85 .DS_Store
87 foo
88 foofoo
89 bar/
90 baz
91 quux
92 quuz
93 bar2/
94 baz
95 frobble
96 My Pictures/
97 Img15.PNG
98 and an .stignore file with the contents:
100 (?d).DS_Store
102 !frobble
103 !quuz
104 foo
105 *2
106 qu*
107 (?i)my pictures
108 all files and directories called “foo”, ending in a “2” or starting
110 with “qu” will be ignored. The end result becomes:
111 .DS_Store # ignored, will be deleted if gets in the way of parent directory removal
113 foo # ignored, matches "foo"
114 foofoo # synced, does not match "foo" but would match "foo*" or "*foo"
115 bar/ # synced
116 baz # synced
117 quux # ignored, matches "qu*"
118 quuz # synced, matches "qu*" but is excluded by the preceding "!quuz"
119 bar2/ # synced, despite matching "*2" due to child frobble
120 baz # ignored, due to parent being ignored
121 frobble # synced, due to "!frobble"
122 My Pictures/ # ignored, matched case insensitive "(?i)my pictures" pattern
123 Img15.PNG # ignored, due to parent being ignored
124 NOTE:
126 Please note that directory patterns ending with a slash some/direc‐
127 tory/ matches the content of the directory, but not the directory
128 itself. If you want the pattern to match the directory and its con‐
129 tent, make sure it does not have a / at the end of the pattern.
130
132 The Syncthing Authors
133
135 2014-2019, The Syncthing Authors
136v1 Mar 17, 2020 SYNCTHING-STIGNORE(5)