When syncing with the Windows 10 desktop client, I get a lot of errors from files created on my Mac.
The files look like this:
filename_18:22:34.something
How do I tell NextCloud desktop client to just stop bothering me about this?
How do I add all files containing “:” to the ignore list so they stay on the server and don’t sync to the desktop?
Their policy seems to be to disallow characters that are not allowed on any of the supported systems:
Your problem:
There are a few issues around this topic, I didn’t go through all of them if there might be an easy workaround for you.
Unfortunately, these links do not solve my problem.
The client is in virtual file mode and I cannot unmark individual directories containing files with forbidden characters. On the other hand, I have 3000 errors in the tray requesting manual file renaming.
I do not want to change the names because these files are part of projects on Mac and after changing they will probably stop fulfilling their function. And besides, there are about 3000 files. 
Hence my first question. How can I tell the client to ignore these errors. How can I add : to the ignore list on the client? I tried adding to the ignore list in the general settings of the client, but it does not help.
I am not sure what syntax I should use there, but neither typing : nor *:* solves the problem.
The only thing I want is for the icon to be green and for the client to stop sending notifications from the tray every 30 seconds. I do not care that they are not synchronized.
I think it is the inverse logic, that you have files on your local file system that are not supposed to be synced (especially temporary files/folders).
The idea is more to tell either Nextcloud server not to tell the client about the files, or the client to just ignore them. A way to try could be file access control:
https://docs.nextcloud.com/server/latest/admin_manual/file_workflows/access_control.html
where you tell that files with a colon, are blocked for the user agent that is sent with the windows desktop client.
In the use case of mixed operating systems, I’d avoid to use file names that are not supported by one of these OS. And if you ignore files/folders, this can lead to problems e.g. when you move folders around, Windows users might delete folder since they think that they are empty …
If you want to change this, the best way is probably to use a script on your mac that renames everything to compatible file names and then syncs these changes with NC.
I can’t really do that. That would break things on Mac. From what I understand those are project snapshots from Logic Pro. If I rename them then Logic project loses the ability to revert changes.
Then put these snapshots in a dedicated folder and unselect this in windows clients from sync. Perhaps you need to restructure data, so that by default you only select a specific subfolder:
/backup
/data
and the win-client, you hook up with the /data subfolder only.
That’s what I thought. And I’ll do that if I don’t find any other option. Unfortunately that would require switching off virtual files in desktop client and my NC account has some 300Gb of pdfs, images and docs. Shared fodlers, etc, etc… Tons and tons of really small files, takes forever to sync. So virtual files are a really nice option for me.
Can’t do this. The way It works in Logic Pro on Mac is that when You create project file it is really a folder in which everything is stored. If that folder is modified in any way, You have a bad day. Mac is stupid.
In the same folder You have Your source WAV files which I sometimes need on windows. Bummer I guess…
So In conclusion an ideal solution for me would be If I could find a way to omit files with colon while syncing to windows. I know it can cause problems and I have to be carefull, but YOLO, I have daily snapshots. 
You could also use a dedicated account just for these mac-files (you can have several accounts at the same time).
What is strange, I didn’t find a lot of references regarding colons in filenames for Logic Pro. I was hoping to find something that you can change that somewhere in the configuration. I found a few topics saying that the colon was not allowed on OS X…
You can always compile a version or the client yourself and change this behavior. And it is not really a use case that it would make sense to have a feature request.
What I read from the sync client, it shouldn’t sync such files in the first place, it usually happens when you rename/upload to the web-interface. Honestly, I’d try to avoid colons in filenames, and check if the software cannot be configured this way.
Too much hassle to be practical.
It would be nice to have check marks in virtual files mode. I can see various reasons Users might not want to sync their entre accounts.
Anyways… I found this post:
So I’ve tried something similar, and added to .sync-exclude.lst. Somehow it did the trick. I don’t get any more notices from tray. Which is all I wanted in the first place.
Someone really needs to update Using the Synchronization Client — Nextcloud Client Manual 3.13.4 documentation to include syntax, use cases and examples. That would save me so much trouble.
It’s the same as the ignore list:
https://docs.nextcloud.com/desktop/3.11/navigating.html#using-the-ignored-files-editor
Just reading through it, it uses regular expressions!
When I tried to ignore just files with comma it didn’t. Ignoring entire folders did.
Don’t know why, but ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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