How can I exclude a folder from indexing in Sublime Text, while still showing it in the sidebar?

Question

To exclude files from the index but keep them in the sidebar, use the binary_file_patterns setting in your User Settings, for example:

"binary_file_patterns": [
  "*.jpg", "*.jpeg", "*.png", "*.gif", "*.ttf", "*.tga", "*.dds",
  "*.ico", "*.eot", "*.pdf", "*.swf", "*.jar", "*.zip",
  "node_modules/**",
  "bower_components/**"
]

Make sure to copy the values from your Settings - Default preferences (here shown as "*.jpg" etc.), or you will start indexing binary files.

You can change your personal settings, in Preferences -> Settings - User, add:

{
    "folder_exclude_patterns":
    [
        ".svn", ".git", ".hg", "CVS",
        "node_modules",
    ],
}

Sublime Text 3 now provides a way to exclude files and folders from indexing while keeping them in the sidebar:

  "index_exclude_patterns": [
    "*.log",
    "node_modules/*"
  ]

On my project I observed the following improvement in the indexing status menu after applying changes:

Before:

index "MyApp" collated in 0.70s from 73934 files
index "MyApp" is using 15167488 bytes for 54234 symbols across 1357673 locations

After:

index "MyApp" collated in 0.00s from 137 files
index "MyApp" is using 61440 bytes for 730 symbols across 4763 locations

Doesn't work in ST3 (Build 3126).

You can show node modules folders in sidebar and hide files inside this way :

"file_exclude_patterns":
[
    ...,
    "node_modules/**"
]

If you want to hide subfolders from each node module :

"folder_exclude_patterns":
[
    "node_modules/*/**"
]

All files inside node_modules will be removed from search, but each node_module subfolder will be still visible in sidebar.