How to ignore files/directories in TFS for avoiding them to go to central source repository?

Question

If you're using local workspaces (TFS 2012+) you can now use the .tfignore file to exclude local folders and files from being checked in.

If you add that file to source control you can ensure others on your team share the same exclusion settings.

Full details on MSDN - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms245454.aspx#tfignore

For the lazy:

You can configure which kinds of files are ignored by placing a text file called .tfignore in the folder where you want rules to apply. The effects of the .tfignore file are recursive. However, you can create .tfignore files in sub-folders to override the effects of a .tfignore file in a parent folder.

The following rules apply to a .tfignore file:

• # begins a comment line
• The * and ? wildcards are supported.
• A filespec is recursive unless prefixed by the \ character.
• ! negates a filespec (files that match the pattern are not ignored)

Example file:

# Ignore .cpp files in the ProjA sub-folder and all its subfolders
ProjA\*.cpp
# 
# Ignore .txt files in this folder 
\*.txt
#
# Ignore .xml files in this folder and all its sub-folders
*.xml
#
# Ignore all files in the Temp sub-folder
\Temp
#
# Do not ignore .dll files in this folder nor in any of its sub-folders
!*.dll

For VS2015 and VS2017

Works with TFS (on-prem) or VSO (Visual Studio Online - the Azure-hosted offering)

The NuGet documentation provides instructions on how to accomplish this and I just followed them successfully for Visual Studio 2015 & Visual Studio 2017 against VSTS (Azure-hosted TFS). Everything is fully updated as of Nov 2016 Aug 2018.

I recommend you follow NuGet's instructions but just to recap what I did:

1. Make sure your packages folder is not committed to TFS. If it is, get it out of there.
2. Everything else we create below goes into the same folder that your .sln file exists in unless otherwise specified (NuGet's instructions aren't completely clear on this).
3. Create a .nuget folder. You can use Windows Explorer to name it .nuget. for it to successfully save as .nuget (it automatically removes the last period) but directly trying to name it .nuget may not work (you may get an error or it may change the name, depending on your version of Windows). Or name the directory nuget, and open the parent directory in command line prompt. type. ren nuget .nuget
4. Inside of that folder, create a NuGet.config file and add the following contents and save it:

NuGet.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <solution>
        <add key="disableSourceControlIntegration" value="true" />
    </solution>
</configuration>

5. Go back in your .sln's folder and create a new text file and name it .tfignore (if using Windows Explorer, use the same trick as above and name it .tfignore.)
6. Put the following content into that file:

.tfignore:

# Ignore the NuGet packages folder in the root of the repository.
# If needed, prefix 'packages' with additional folder names if it's 
# not in the same folder as .tfignore.
packages

# include package target files which may be required for msbuild,
# again prefixing the folder name as needed.
!packages/*.targets

7. Save all of this, commit it to TFS, then close & re-open Visual Studio and the Team Explorer should no longer identify the packages folder as a pending check-in.
8. Copy/pasted via Windows Explorer the .tfignore file and .nuget folder to all of my various solutions and committed them and I no longer have the packages folder trying to sneak into my source control repo!

Further Customization

While not mine, I have found this .tfignore template by sirkirby to be handy. The example in my answer covers the Nuget packages folder but this template includes some other things as well as provides additional examples that can be useful if you wish to customize this further.

It does seem a little cumbersome to ignore files (and folders) in Team Foundation Server. I've found a couple ways to do this (using TFS / Team Explorer / Visual Studio 2008). These methods work with the web site ASP project type, too.

One way is to add a new or existing item to a project (e.g. right click on project, Add Existing Item or drag and drop from Windows explorer into the solution explorer), let TFS process the file(s) or folder, then undo pending changes on the item(s). TFS will unmark them as having a pending add change, and the files will sit quietly in the project and stay out of TFS.

Another way is with the Add Items to Folder command of Source Control Explorer. This launches a small wizard, and on one of the steps you can select items to exclude (although, I think you have to add at least one item to TFS with this method for the wizard to let you continue).

You can even add a forbidden patterns check-in policy (under Team -> Team Project Settings -> Source Control... -> Check-in Policy) to disallow other people on the team from mistakenly checking in certain assets.

For TFS 2013:

Start in VisualStudio-Team Explorer, in the PendingChanges Dialog undo the Changes whith the state [add], which should be ignored.

Visual Studio will detect the Add(s) again. Click On "Detected: x add(s)"-in Excluded Changes

In the opened "Promote Cadidate Changes"-Dialog You can easy exclude Files and Folders with the Contextmenu. Options are:

• Ignore this item
• Ignore by extension
• Ignore by file name
• Ignore by ffolder (yes ffolder, TFS 2013 Update 4/Visual Studio 2013 Premium Update 4)

Don't forget to Check In the changed .tfignore-File.

For VS 2015/2017:

The same procedure: In the "Excluded Changes Tab" in TeamExplorer\Pending Changes click on Detected: xxx add(s)

The "Promote Candidate Changes" Dialog opens, and on the entries you can Right-Click for the Contextmenu. Typo is fixed now :-)

I found the perfect way to Ignore files in TFS like SVN does.
First of all, select the file that you want to ignore (e.g. the Web.config).
Now go to the menu tab and select:

File Source control > Advanced > Exclude web.config from source control

... and boom; your file is permanently excluded from source control.