Hi, Love Dropbox! Are you going to support Storage Access Framework? Best Jonas

It's a shame Dropbox still doesn't support Storage Access Framework, like other major cloud services. Any update on this?

Looks like there have been no responses for quite a while.I have created an Android DocumentsProvider supporting the Storage Access Framework that supports DropBox. After having read through the three links posted above, the one question I can't get answered is whether it is considered OK to programmatically (and within the TOS) do the following:1. Get a token for accessing a user's public folder (this appears to be ok, no credentials being stored by the app)2. Utilize the token in the API to access a file (this appears to be ok)3. Utilize the token in the API to generate a publicly shareable link to the file4. Use the link generated to then have the app stream the file directly from DropBox to the appNote that all of this is only possible when the user authenticates using the DropBox mechanism for authentication (i.e. outside the app), and then utilizes the resulting token.Is that flow 1-4 considered ok for an app to perform?I'm asking because while I have written a custom DocumentsProvider for DropBox, what I want to do is use it to allow the user to choose a file from their personal dropbox, then persist the direct shareable http link into a local DB for use in streaming the content from DropBox at a later date by the app. I want the streaming to be handled by components OTHER THAN the custom DocumentsProvider that are included in the app (i.e. Glide for images, ExoPlayer for video, etc.).Essentially - I want to use the custom DocumentsProvider to allow the user to locate the file, then I want the other components in charge of streaming it down (which they do a great job of - no need for me to reinvent the wheel). Is such use of the DropBox API:1. Create Shareable Link2. Pass link to Glide and/or ExoPlayerSupported by the terms of service?Thanks!

Gato-Gato - Dropbox doesn't supply their own DocumentsProvider implementation that integrates with the SAF, but they do have a plethora of APIs to use if you want to roll your own. That's what I did.My DocumentsProvider uses those APIs to implement the methods that the SAF calls. I based it off of an article Ian Lake wrote some time ago, located here: https://medium.com/androiddevelopers/building-a-documentsprovider-f7f2fb38e86a. There are some tricky parts to this (correctly implementing threading to deal with directories that have lots of entries, getting media metadata in a performant manner, etc.), but you can search StackOverflow for posts from me and see how I solved many of them.

Thanks! I can't make any promises one way or another, but I'm sending this along to the team as a feature request.

Any progress on this? The new APIs in Android N let's you pick a document tree and you can then call methods like move, delete, create etc! This would make it possible to browse Dropbox file structure in other apps by letting a user choose a folder in another app and that app doesn't need to know about Dropbox at all! Maybe that's why you haven't implemented it yet because you want every app to have an API key? Is it against the Dropbox terms of service to just create an app that hooks into storage access framework and letting any app use Dropbox without the other app knowing it?

Android Storage Access Framework support

18 Replies

Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
10 years ago
Thanks! I can't make any promises one way or another, but I'm sending this along to the team as a feature request.
David L.51
New member | Level 2
9 years ago
Any progress on this? The new APIs in Android N let's you pick a document tree and you can then call methods like move, delete, create etc!

This would make it possible to browse Dropbox file structure in other apps by letting a user choose a folder in another app and that app doesn't need to know about Dropbox at all! Maybe that's why you haven't implemented it yet because you want every app to have an API key?

Is it against the Dropbox terms of service to just create an app that hooks into storage access framework and letting any app use Dropbox without the other app knowing it?
Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
9 years ago
Hi David, I don't have an update on this unfortunately.

Also, we can't provide any absolute guarantee of an app's compliance based on this hypothetical description, so you should be sure to review all the guidelines and terms before developing an app:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/tos
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/devguide
https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/branding
Guillaume G.3
New member | Level 1
9 years ago
It's a shame Dropbox still doesn't support Storage Access Framework, like other major cloud services.

Any update on this?
Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
9 years ago
No update on this right now. Apologies I don't have better news!
warting
New member | Level 2
9 years ago
Come on dropbox! You can do it!
https://github.com/ianhanniballake/LocalStorage
lironhel
New member | Level 2
8 years ago
Hey , any updates here ?
Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago
Sorry, no news on this.
David L.51
New member | Level 2
8 years ago
Is it safe to say that you have no plans to support this in your app?
Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago
David L.51 Unfortunately, I don't have any news one way or another regarding this request.