Air Flow automatically skips certain temporary or system files during sync to keep your workspace clean and prevent unnecessary uploads. If you need to sync these ignored files, you can override this default behavior by creating a custom configuration file.
Files ignored by default
Air Flow automatically ignores specific system and application-specific temporary files that do not need to be stored in your creative library. The following table lists the file patterns ignored by default:
Key | What it ignores | Example |
| Adobe After Effects auto-save files |
|
| Adobe InDesign lock files (created while a file is open) |
|
| Adobe Bridge cache and temp files |
|
| SketchUp temporary files |
|
| Custom folder icon files created by macOS/Windows |
|
| Generic temporary files |
|
How to sync ignored files
If you need Air Flow to sync any of these default ignored files, you can override the restriction by creating an included-patterns.txt file in your Air Flow data folder.
Locate your Air Flow data folder
Open the directory where Air Flow stores its configuration files based on your operating system:
macOS: Open Finder, select Go → Go to Folder... from the menu bar, paste
~/Library/Application Support/air-desktop, and press Enter.
Windows: Press Win + R to open the Run dialog, paste
%APPDATA%\air-desktop, and press Enter.
Create the configuration file
Inside the data folder, create a new plain text file named exactly
included-patterns.txt.
Tip for macOS: Open TextEdit, select Format → Make Plain Text, and save the file. Make sure TextEdit does not append a hidden
.txtextension.
Tip for Windows: Right-click inside the folder, select New → Text Document, and rename it to
included-patterns.txt.
Add the patterns to include
Open
included-patterns.txtand add one pattern key per line from the table preceding. The keys are case-sensitive and must match exactly (for example,tempFiles).
tempFilesadobe
InDesignLockFilesRestart Air Flow
Quit the desktop application completely and reopen it. Air Flow reads this configuration file at startup to apply your overrides.
Reverting to default settings
To restore the default sync behavior and ignore these files again, delete the included-patterns.txt file from your Air Flow data folder, or remove the specific keys from the file. Restart Air Flow to apply the changes.
If you are experiencing other file transfer issues, see Air Flow is showing an error when I upload or download. For general information on managing your sync preferences, see Working with Air Flow.