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WhyGee
Participating Frequently
May 14, 2025

Preferences > Projects > Library paths' "Exclude Pattern" not working

  • May 14, 2025
  • 4 replies
  • 205 views

Hi,

I've been with support for hours and hours trying to get the Exclude Pattern in the 
Preferences > Projects > Library paths to work with no success. 

My objective is to specify a root directory for an asset library which has a bunch of assets shared among artists. I want Recursive enabled so it would automatically scan the subdirectories for all the assets. 

LibraryRoot/Asset1/
LibraryRoot/Asset2/

LibraryRoot/Asset3/

...

Each asset subdirectory will look something like:

LibraryRoot/Asset1/asset.sbs
LibraryRoot/Asset1/WIP/asset1.sbs

LibraryRoot/Asset1/WIP/asset2.sbs

LibraryRoot/Asset1/WIP/asset3.sbs

...

 

WIP will contain development save iterations of the asset and should be excluded from the Recursive scan.

I've tried the following Exclude Patterns:

WIP

WIP/*

/WIP/*
*/WIP/*

.*[\\\/](?:WIP)(?:[\\\/].*)?$

also with and without quotations. 

Nothing works, it seems like it's completely ignoring everything in this field. 

Can anyone confirm if this works or doesn't work for them?

 

If this is confirmed as a bug, how can I submit it to be fixed urgently?
Sorry for the rant but support was not at all helpful. Unfortunately this can be said about all the times I've had to contact Adobe's support. They could take a lesson from Sidefx who respond professionally and fix bugs incredible fast.

 

Thanks in advance

    4 replies

    Luca Giarrizzo
    Community Manager
    Luca GiarrizzoCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    May 6, 2026

    Hello all,

     

    Indeed the documentation does not reflect the actual behaviour of the ‘Exclude pattern’ feature. It actually enforces the regex term on the file name only and not its full path.

    I am doing the following:

    • Update the documentation to convey the actual behaviour
    • Share with the team the need to use the full path in order to exclude subfolders

    Thank you for your patience with this!

     

    Best regards,
    Luca

    Luca Giarrizzo | Quality Engineer - Substance 3D Designer | Adobe
      AlexanderBoerner
      AlexanderBoerner
      Participant
      May 4, 2026

      Any news on this one? Exclude patterns still don’t work on paths, just on the filenames themselves. 

      davescm
      Community Expert
      davescmCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 16, 2025

      You're right the documentation does indeed show that this should work for folders. I can't get it to do so though. It does work for filenames here.

      Dave

      W
      WhyGeeAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      May 16, 2025
      Appreciate the confirmation!
      /Yaniv
      davescm
      Community Expert
      davescmCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      May 16, 2025

      Hi,
      As far as I know, 'Exclude Pattern' applies to the filename not the folder name. So, if your previous assets were named assetWIP2.sbs..etc then using*WIP* would exclude them.

       

      An 'idea request' to exclude a folder would seem sensible though.

      Dave

      W
      WhyGeeAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      May 16, 2025
      Thanks for your response Dave.
      >From the documentation, as far as i understand it seems like it should
      target directories as well.

      https://helpx.adobe.com/substance-3d-designer/interface/preferences-window/project-settings.html


      I will check if it works with filenames. That might be sufficient for now.

      Thanks again!
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