Tell Sublime Text to ignore everything in .gitignore?

You can get a list of all the ignored files with

git ls-files --others -i --exclude-standard

and then add this to your file_exclude_patterns in Sublime Text as bheklilr suggested.


Assuming you have Sublime 3 and already installed Package Manager:

  1. add repo https://github.com/apc999/sublime-text-gitignore
  2. add package sublime-text-gitignore
  3. use menu item : File->Exclude Git-ignored

Have fun:)


I created a quick-and-dirty plugin, sublime-gitignorer, to solve exactly this problem.

It is currently tested on Ubuntu and Windows in Sublime Text 2 and 3. I expect it will also work on any other Linux distro or on Mac.


To install, assuming you have package control, just:

  • Press CTRL+SHIFT+P (CMD+SHIFT+P on Mac)
  • Select "Install Package"
  • Search for the Gitignored File Excluder and press Enter.

Alternatively, if you don't have package control you can copy gitignore_plugin.py to your Packages directory, which you can locate by selecting Browse Packages... from the Preferences menu in Sublime. You should really get Package Control instead, though - it's useful.


I'm not kidding when I say this plugin is dirty. The way it works is that the plugin, every five seconds:

  • Checks for Git repos located within your open folders
  • Asks Git what paths are ignored in each of those repos
  • Adds those paths to the file_exclude_patterns and folder_exclude_patterns settings.

Seems to work okay for most users, though - at least as long as the folders you're opening in Sublime aren't too huge. The presence of giant folders (e.g a typical node_modules folder) can, in combination with this plugin, slow Sublime to a crawl.

Anyone looking to contribute or report bugs should check out the issues page.