How can I exclude files from Jest watch?

From the documentation you need to add modulePathIgnorePatterns which is an array of string values which will be matched against

modulePathIgnorePatterns [array<string>] #

(default: []) An array of regexp pattern strings that are matched against all module paths before those paths are to be considered 'visible' to the module loader. If a given module's path matches any of the patterns, it will not be require()-able in the test environment. These pattern strings match against the full path. Use the <rootDir> string token to include the path to your project's root directory to prevent it from accidentally ignoring all of your files in different environments that may have different root directories. Example: ['<rootDir>/build/'].

https://facebook.github.io/jest/docs/configuration.html#modulepathignorepatterns-array-string

Add this to your configuration...

modulePathIgnorePatterns: ["directoryNameToIgnore"]

or:

modulePathIgnorePatterns: ["<rootDir>/dist/"]

To exclude a directory from Jest testing, use testPathIgnorePatterns

testPathIgnorePatterns

"testPathIgnorePatterns": ["directory to ignore"]

Below in file package.json, I have configured to ignore the "src" directory

{
      "name": "learn-test",
      "jest": {
        "testPathIgnorePatterns": ["src"]
      },
      "version": "0.1.0",
      "private": true,
      "dependencies": {
        "react": "^16.4.1",
        "react-dom": "^16.4.1",
        "react-scripts": "1.1.4"
      },
      "scripts": {
        "start": "react-scripts start",
        "build": "react-scripts build",
        "test": "jest --watch",
        "eject": "react-scripts eject",

      },

      "devDependencies": {}
    }

I had the same problem when I had a directory that must not be tested, although I still wanted it to be inside of the __tests__ directory (e.g., __mocks__).

You should not use a use relative paths in such case (no slashes). So inside of your package.json file add:

jest: {
  "modulePathIgnorePatterns": ["__mocks__"]
}

That solved my problem.