# Cloaking files or folders [edit]

This page describes how to cloak certain files or folders from synchronization between a local folder and an FTP site.

## Introduction

The Aptana FTP tool gives you the option of cloaking (or hiding) specific files, file types, and folders from synchronization, uploads, and downloads. This feature is useful if you have a large directory of files that you want to exclude from your synchronization or uploads.

You can cloak a file or folder two different ways:

- You can right-click the file or folder in the File View and select Synchronize > Cloak this file type from the context menu.
- You can set up your preferences to cloak certain file types, using wildcards and regular expresssions.

## Instructions

### Quickly cloaking a file type

To easily cloak all files of a certain file type:

1. In File View, right-click a file with the extension that you want to cloak (e.g. .zip, .gif, etc.).
2. From the context menu, select Synchronize > Cloak this file type.

To uncloak this file type, right-click the file again, and select Synchronize > Uncloak this file type from the context menu.

### Setting up cloaking in your preferences

To perform more complicated cloaking, you can add certain file types and folder names to your Aptana preferences, such as cloaking all folders with the name "*.svn", to cloak Subversion files.

To set up your cloaking preferences:

1. From the Window menu, select Preferences... to open a Preferences window.
2. On the left side of the Preferences window, expand the Aptana tree.
3. Under Aptana, select Synchronization.
4. Click the Add button to add a file type, file name, or folder to be cloaked. You can use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard as part of the file or folder name. For example, adding "*svn" will cloak all folders whose names end in "svn". As another example, adding "*.project" will cloak all ".project" files.
5. Click OK to save your changes and close the Preferences window.

## Related Topics

- About the Aptana FTP tool
- Adding an FTP site
- Adding a site connection
- Synchronizing your files
- Editing a file from a remote site
- Uploading or downloading a file or folder

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