ASP.NET Core: Exclude or include files on publish

Question

There were before aspdotnet1.0 include/exclude sections on project.json file

{
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules",
    "bower_components"
  ],
  "publishExclude": [
    "**.xproj",
    "**.user",
    "**.vspscc"
  ]
}

Where is this section in ASP.NET Core 1.1 (there is no project.json)? Are there similar sections on .csproj file or .pubxml?

score 137 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 09 '18 at 17:51

137

From documentation: if you wish to specify, for example, some files to get published with your app, you can still use the known mechanisms in csproj for that (for example, the <Content> element).

There is a CopyToPublishDirectory attribute for ItemGroup elements that determines whether to copy the file to the publish directory and can have one of the following value:

Always,
PreserveNewest
Never

Note, that there is also similar CopyToOutputDirectory attribute for output folder.

Example (from here):

<ItemGroup>

  <None Include="notes.txt" CopyToOutputDirectory="Always" />
  <!-- CopyToOutputDirectory = { Always, PreserveNewest, Never } -->

  <Content Include="files\**\*" CopyToPublishDirectory="PreserveNewest" />
  <None Include="publishnotes.txt" CopyToPublishDirectory="Always" />
  <!-- CopyToPublishDirectory = { Always, PreserveNewest, Never } -->
</ItemGroup>

If you are interesting how project.json -.csproj migration use CopyToPublishDirectory attribute to migrate publish options, you may look into MigratePublishOptionsRule class in dotnet cli repo.

edited Mar 09 '18 at 17:51

AaronLS

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answered Mar 10 '17 at 08:36

Set

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MigratePublishOptionsRule link is dead. – Tagc Jul 06 '17 at 07:42
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This answer is for project before Visual Studio 2017 15.3. Please refer to @Wagner-Pereira for the latest projects – Ben Anderson Aug 03 '18 at 17:47
1

I have PreserveNewest PreserveNewest Never I want the readme.html to be copied during publish but it's not doing it. – Chris Ward Aug 20 '20 at 18:07
This work using .Net 6 CLI – vcRobe Sep 21 '22 at 20:02

score 79 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 02 '23 at 08:30

79

In .csproj for Visual Studio versions 15.3 and higher, this keeps the files visible in Visual Studio (whereas "Content Remove" does not), and prevents the files from being published.

<ItemGroup>
    <Content Update="appsettings*.json" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
</ItemGroup>

For excluding the content of a folder you need to write:

<!-- Excluding the ClientApp folder. -->
<Content Update="ClientApp\**" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />

edited Aug 02 '23 at 08:30

Mojtaba

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answered May 08 '18 at 17:44

Craig Wilson

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This is a much better solution than accepted answer! Note the Update attribute so that you can apply it to files which have been already included in project by default because they are under the root folder – HH321 Jul 06 '18 at 15:44
3

I also agree. This also works in VS 2019, version 16.0.0 (just tested) – ArieKanarie May 02 '19 at 08:19
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Works for me. Reference here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/visual-studio-publish-profiles?view=aspnetcore-2.2#exclude-files – ahong May 22 '19 at 13:00
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Confirmed that this still works. Tried everything above and nothing worked, but this one did. – scubaFun Jul 01 '20 at 12:05
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I can comfirm this solution has worked for me on Visual Studio 2022 / .Net Core 6 – Gerardo Verrone Mar 09 '22 at 05:06
Can I specify here that only appsettings file from current project must be published? I need to exclude appsettings files from dependence projects. – Akmal Salikhov Mar 24 '22 at 09:35
It is worth it to mention that for excluding the content of a folder you need to write ` ` – Mojtaba Aug 02 '23 at 08:27

score 41 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 07 '18 at 18:54

41

After Visual Studio 2017 15.3

Edit the .csproj file to manually exclude files/folder from being published

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Remove="src\**" />
  <Content Remove="node_modules\**" />
</ItemGroup>

ref: https://www.danielcrabtree.com/blog/273/fixing-the-duplicate-content-error-after-upgrading-visual-studio-2017

answered Feb 07 '18 at 18:54

Wagner Pereira

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This is the solution that works now. CopyToPublishDirectory or CopyToOutputDirectory haven't worked at all after 15.3 – Bluesight Mar 21 '18 at 15:50
Unfortunately this removes your modules also from the VS solution explorer and you'll lose tooling support. `CopyToPublishDirectory` works fine for me with 17.5. – Oliver Schimmer May 13 '23 at 13:33
This is the only way we could get this to work also in VS 2022. Not sure if there are other publish settings that make the old way work. We ended up updating all the files using the properties panel to **None->DoNotCopy** and the find-replace the csproj file with from ** – SM3RKY May 22 '23 at 20:46
This is the only solution working for Rider. – haey3 Jul 14 '23 at 12:18
On Rider, using `Remove` attribute also hides the file(s) in the solution explorer. Using `Update` in place of `Remove` with `CopyToPublishDirectory="Never"` fixed the issue while preserving the file's visibility in the solution explorer. – haey3 Jul 14 '23 at 13:02

score 23 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 19 '18 at 04:10

With Visual Studio 2017 (tested in 15.6.5), you can right-click on the file in the Solution Explorer and set the Build Action to None.

It will update your .csproj file like this:

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Remove="appsettings.Development.json" />
  <Content Remove="appsettings.json" />
  <Content Remove="npm-shrinkwrap.json" />
  <Content Remove="package.json" />
  <Content Remove="tsconfig.json" />
</ItemGroup>

<ItemGroup>
  <None Include="appsettings.Development.json" />
  <None Include="appsettings.json" />
  <None Include="npm-shrinkwrap.json" />
  <None Include="package.json" />
  <None Include="tsconfig.json" />
</ItemGroup>

Hope this helps.

Just seen your answer after finding the same solution for vs2019^^. So I'm only adding this information: this solution also works for vs2019 (and is the best and easiest way to prevent a file from being published IMHO). — ggo, May 07 '21 at 11:21

score 18 · Answer 5 · answered May 25 '20 at 16:59

For Visual Studio 2019, I managed to exclued a wwwroot subfolder named "dummy" (including all subfolders of "dummy") from publish output using the following code:

<ItemGroup>
  <Content Update="wwwroot\dummy\**\*">
    <CopyToPublishDirectory>Never</CopyToPublishDirectory>
  </Content>
</ItemGroup>

Note: The requirement was to keep the wwwroot and its subfolder(s) included in project but just exclude while publishing.

score 12 · Answer 6 · answered Mar 12 '21 at 20:52

To exclude files on publish, edit your publish file, e.g. FolderProfile.pubxml, and add the appropriate XML elements shown below to include/exclude files and folders.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project ToolsVersion="4.0" 
         xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <WebPublishMethod>FileSystem</WebPublishMethod>
    <PublishProvider>FileSystem</PublishProvider>
    <LastUsedBuildConfiguration>Release</LastUsedBuildConfiguration>
    <LastUsedPlatform>Any CPU</LastUsedPlatform>
    <SiteUrlToLaunchAfterPublish />
    <LaunchSiteAfterPublish>True</LaunchSiteAfterPublish>
    <ExcludeApp_Data>False</ExcludeApp_Data>
    <PublishFramework />
    <ProjectGuid>afa9f185-7ce0-4935-9da1-ab676229d68a</ProjectGuid>
    <publishUrl>bin\Release\PublishOutput</publishUrl>
    <DeleteExistingFiles>False</DeleteExistingFiles>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <ItemGroup>

    <!-- CopyToPublishDirectory = { Always, PreserveNewest, Never } -->

    <!-- Copying a file located outside of the project into the published site's wwwroot folder. -->
    <ResolvedFileToPublish Include="..\ReadMe2.md">
      <RelativePath>wwwroot\ReadMe2.md</RelativePath>
      <CopyToPublishDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToPublishDirectory>
    </ResolvedFileToPublish>

    <!-- Excluding the wwwroot\Content folder. -->
    <Content Update="wwwroot\Content\**\*" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />

    <!-- Excluding the Views\Home\About2.cshtml file. -->
    <Content Update="Views\Home\About2.cshtml" CopyToPublishDirectory="Never" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

See also: Visual Studio publish profiles - Selective file inclusion

score 6 · Answer 7 · answered Mar 09 '22 at 05:21

The Solution from @Craig Wilson worked great to pubish with Visual Studio 2022 and Core 6

The following is a sample to exclude all appsettings except for appsettings.json and also the appsetting.QA.json when you setup an Environment Variable at a system level like ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=QA

In windows, you can also setup the environment variable on the fly in the same powershell you use to run the dotnet pubish command.

$env:ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT = 'QA'

That variable will be drop when you close that powershell

    <!-- Publish Settings -->
    <ItemGroup>
        <Content Update="appsettings.*.json">
        <CopyToPublishDirectory>Never</CopyToPublishDirectory>
        </Content>  
        <Content Update="appsettings.$(ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT).json">
        <CopyToPublishDirectory>Always</CopyToPublishDirectory>
        </Content>  
        <Content Update="appsettings.$(ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT).json">
        <CopyToPublishDirectory>Always</CopyToPublishDirectory>
        </Content>      
    </ItemGroup>

Please note, in Visual studio 2022 all files are included by default and you just need to use Update

score 4 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 04 '20 at 14:13

In my case I need local.settings.json locally during debug, but I do not want it included in my WebDeploy zip file during Release builds or Publish:

  <ItemGroup>
    <Content Include="..\local.settings.json" Link="local.settings.json" Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Debug|AnyCPU'">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>PreserveNewest</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
    <Content Include="..\local.settings.json" Link="local.settings.json" Condition="'$(Configuration)|$(Platform)'=='Release|AnyCPU'">
      <CopyToOutputDirectory>Never</CopyToOutputDirectory>
    </Content>
  </ItemGroup>

**

Why add that second condition for release? Isn't `Never` the default behaviour anyway? — Itamaram, Jul 01 '21 at 23:12

score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Apr 16 '18 at 04:34

I noticed that my folders with a few files in them were not being published- I tried right clicking the folders in the project to see if I could select an option to include the folder with the deployment- it's not there, but I did find if I select the files inside the folder and mark them to copy on deployment, it will copy the files and create their folder in the process.

This helps if your folder has files, but doesn't help if your folders are empty.

score 2 · Answer 10 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

2

Edit the .csproj file to manually exclude files/folder from being published.

You can also refer this

For web deployment see https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/webdev/2010/04/22/web-deployment-excluding-files-and-folders-via-the-web-applications-project-file/.

project.json has been now replaced by csproj. You can read about it more on https://www.stevejgordon.co.uk/project-json-replaced-by-csproj.

For Upgrading Existing .NET Core 1.0 Projects or for using Using .NET Core 1.1 you can read https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/11/16/announcing-net-core-1-1/.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:18

Community

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answered Mar 10 '17 at 06:58

Shridhar R Kulkarni

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Yes, I know about csproj instead of project.json, but where is include/exclude secion? – hcp Mar 10 '17 at 07:07
Updated my answer. – Shridhar R Kulkarni Mar 10 '17 at 07:13

score 2 · Answer 11 · answered Nov 06 '20 at 20:10

2

In Visual Studio 2019,

Right-click the file -> Properties
Copy To Output Directory-> Copy always

Save the solution and try publish

answered Nov 06 '20 at 20:10

Anish Kutti

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Jan 19 '22 at 18:51

0

In visual studio 2022: Unload csproj, open the file To add content and the subfolders, insert:

<ItemGroup>
        <None Update="StaticContent\**">
            <CopyToOutputDirectory>Always</CopyToOutputDirectory>
        </None>
    </ItemGroup>

answered Jan 19 '22 at 18:51

Dan K.

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score -2 · Answer 13 · answered Oct 26 '21 at 18:17

-2

Visual Studio 2019:

Go to the "Properties" for the file in the "Solution Explorer"
Change the "Copy to Output Directory" property to the desired value ("Copy always", "Do not copy", "Copy if newer").

answered Oct 26 '21 at 18:17

Ywapom

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ASP.NET Core: Exclude or include files on publish

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