Excluding Large Folders in VS Code for Monorepos

VS Code has three separate settings that matter here, and using only one isn't enough for real performance gains:

Setting	What it does
files.exclude	Hides files from the Explorer sidebar
search.exclude	Skips files during search (Ctrl+Shift+F)
files.watcherExclude	Stops the file watcher — biggest perf win

Recommended config

Put this in your workspace .vscode/settings.json (not global, since it's project-specific):

{
  "files.exclude": {
    "**/node_modules": true,
    "**/dist": true,
    "**/build": true,
    "**/.next": true,
    "**/.nuxt": true,
    "**/coverage": true,
    "**/.turbo": true,
    "**/.cache": true,
    "**/logs": true
  },

  "search.exclude": {
    "**/node_modules": true,
    "**/dist": true,
    "**/build": true,
    "**/.next": true,
    "**/coverage": true,
    "**/package-lock.json": true,
    "**/yarn.lock": true,
    "**/pnpm-lock.yaml": true
  },

  "files.watcherExclude": {
    "**/node_modules/**": true,
    "**/dist/**": true,
    "**/build/**": true,
    "**/.next/**": true,
    "**/.nuxt/**": true,
    "**/coverage/**": true,
    "**/.turbo/**": true,
    "**/.cache/**": true,
    "**/logs/**": true
  }
}

Key points

• `/node_modules** (with /) matches node_modules` at **any depth — so it covers apps/web/node_modules, packages/api/node_modules, etc.
• files.watcherExclude needs a trailing `/`** — it watches directories, not the folder itself. Different syntax from the other two.
• Don't exclude node_modules from files.watcherExclude if you rely on auto-install / pnpm linking feedback — usually it's fine, but if you use TypeScript project references with node_modules symlinks, remove that line.

Optional: if you use VS Code Workspaces

If your monorepo is large, use a .code-workspace file instead of opening the root:

{
  "folders": [
    { "path": "apps/web" },
    { "path": "apps/api" },
    { "path": "packages/shared" }
  ],
  "settings": {
    "files.watcherExclude": {
      "**/node_modules/**": true,
      "**/dist/**": true
    }
  }
}

This way VS Code only indexes the folders you actually work in, which is the biggest performance boost for multi-app projects.

Verify it worked

Open Command Palette → Developer: Show Running Extensions or Help → Toggle Developer Tools → Console, and check for file-watcher warnings. On Linux you may also need:

echo fs.inotify.max_user_watches=524288 | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
sudo sysctl -p