I am hoping someone can help with this as I am not getting anywhere and am being past from pillar to post between support desks! Previously I have a variety of 3rd party apps intergrated with my personal dropbox - one being Zapier for example. Since upgrading to Business Zapier and every other 3rd party app can only see my 'personal' files in my dropbox account and not the 'team' files. There doesnt appear to be any setting that allows this access, Zapier blame Dropbox, Dropbox blame Zapier - so hoping that there will be some techies on here that acutally have experience in creating such apps - what needs to happen here? Is this a setting on our dropbox account or is this the way these apps have connected via the API.Probabably worth mentioning I am an Admin of said Dropbox account. Any help greatly appreciated.

It sounds like you're using the team space and member folders configuration in your Business account. The Dropbox API does offer the ability to access the team space, but the app will need to be written to do so. There's a developer guide that covers how to do that here.

App Folders and Business access | The Dropbox Community

20 Replies

Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago
It sounds like you're using the team space and member folders configuration in your Business account. The Dropbox API does offer the ability to access the team space, but the app will need to be written to do so. There's a developer guide that covers how to do that here.
BPM_Steve
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago
Thanks for the quick reply Greg - this is a pain - as it would appear most of the integration apps out there don't support this config. I'm guessing its fairly new? Is there anyway to switch to the old config?
Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
8 years ago
Yes, this is relatively new.

I can't say whether or not it's possible to change the configuration on your team, but you can contact Business support to ask:

https://www.dropbox.com/support/email/business_and_teams/submit
edsnails
New member | Level 2
8 years ago
Did you get anywhere with this BPM_Steve?
I've just upgraded to Dropbox Business and have the same problems. It's awful! 3rd Party apps (except Apple 'Files' app) won't show the business folders. I have tried support from Dropbox and the app and am getting nowhere.
Did you get your account switched to the old config?
BPM_Steve
Explorer | Level 4
8 years ago
Hi,
No I didn't - it would appear that most of the 3rd parties are using the older file structure. I have to say though the new file structure is a lot better. I did implement a work around however which has worked well for us. I created a complete copy of the Business folders onto the 'personal area' of my dropbox. Then used GoodSync to keep them in sync. You can then setup and apps etc to the personal folder (all works fine) and any changes are quickly synced to the business folders. If that all makes sense.

Drop me a line if you want to talk through the 'solution' in more detail. Always happy to help.

Steve
Roger D.8
Explorer | Level 3
8 years ago
BPM_Steve-

Mind posting the GoodSync settings that you found successful? Thank you.
Matthew G.30
Helpful | Level 6
7 years ago
I'm running into the same issue with Zapier. It will only access my personal folder and cannot access the team space. Other than the Goodsync solution, anyone come up with an app to do this? Anyone want to go in together on a developer who can figure this out?
jandrasko
Explorer | Level 4
7 years ago
Same issue here with PDF Expert -- has anyone found a solution?
Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
7 years ago
If any particular app isn't supporting access to the "team space", the best solution would be to have the developer of that app update it to do so, so you may wish to contact them to request it. The developer reference for this can be found here, and Dropbox API support is also available to help developers with this.
Thomasbackdrops
New member | Level 2
7 years ago
Dropbox. To say push it onto the App developer seems so silly. I don't understand why Dropbox isn't looking at features that are in their bigger competitors features and simply integrating them. Cantos is a perfect example. Why can't I in dropbox click on any file and say I want it associated with X, Y or Z folder but not actually have to make a complete new duplicate of the file. It seems quite a simple task compared to going through the extremly tedious task of doing a Zapier for each folder or other method. I've read soooooo many complaints about not having a feature like this. The copy feature in business is great but once you've copied it....forget it unless you have some way of syncing the copy that for some silly reason isn't available in dropbox.