Choose folders to be ignored during search in VS Code
Update April 2018
You can do this in the search section of vscode by pre-fixing an exclamation mark to each folder or file you want to exclude.
Make sure the 'Use Exclude Settings and Ignore Files' cog is selected
Temporary Exclusions
From the search function, click the ellipsis to show the files to include
and files to exclude
text boxes. Enter any files and folder to exclude (separated by commas).
Persistent Exclusions
From menu choose File ➡️ Preferences ➡️ Settings ➡️ User/Workspace Settings
and filter default settings to search
.
User
settings will apply to all workspacesWorkspace
settings will apply only to this workspace
You can modify the search.exclude
setting (copy from default setting to your user or workspace settings). That will apply only to searches. Note that settings from files.exclude
will be automatically applied.
Toggling search exclusions
You can (sometimes accidentally) toggle if these exclusions are enabled or disabled when searching using the gear icon in the files to exclude
text box. Click the ellipsis, then the gear icon to toggle.
Additional documentation on configuring settings in Visual Studio Code
If the settings don't work
You might also need to Clear Editor History (See: https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/6502).
Example
I am developing an EmberJS application which saves thousands of files under the tmp
directory.
If you select WORKSPACE SETTINGS
on the right side of the search field, the search exclusion will only be applied to this particular project. And a corresponding .vscode
folder will be added to the root folder containing settings.json
.
This is my example settings:
{
// ...
"search.exclude": {
"**/.git": true,
"**/node_modules": true,
"**/bower_components": true,
"**/tmp": true
},
// ...
}
Note: Include a ** at the beginning of any search exclusion to cover the search term over any folders and sub-folders.
Picture of search before updating settings:
Before updating the settings the search results are a mess.
Picture of search after updating settings:
After updating the settings the search results are exactly what I want.