Automatically Deleting Files After X Days - General Data Protection Regulation May 2018

So created a quick bit of code to delete files older than X days but its very rough and hasn't been tested properly.  It doesn't get round the issue of dates of folders, nor does it get round the issue of not knowing the creation date.  Comments welcomed as there must be a better way than this?

   enum MODIFIED_DATE_TYPE {
        SERVER_MODIFIED_DATE, CLIENT_MODIFIED_DATE;
    }

    private long deleteFilesOlderThanXDays(long numDays, MODIFIED_DATE_TYPE TYPE) throws DbxException {
        //ALPHA - add protection against going above long.MAXIMUM
        long numberFilesDeleted = 0;
        ListFolderBuilder listFolderBuilder = client.files().listFolderBuilder("");
        ListFolderResult result = listFolderBuilder.withRecursive(true).start();

        while (!result.getHasMore()) {
            if (result != null) {
                for (Metadata entry : result.getEntries()) {
//                    System.out.println("Analysing: " + entry.getPathLower());
                    if (entry instanceof FileMetadata) {
                        Date dateOfFile;
                        switch (TYPE) {
                            case CLIENT_MODIFIED_DATE:
                                dateOfFile = ((FileMetadata) entry).getServerModified();
                                break;

                            case SERVER_MODIFIED_DATE:
                                dateOfFile = ((FileMetadata) entry).getClientModified();
                                break;
                            default:
                                throw new AssertionError();
                        }
                        //Check to see if the current file is too old
                        if (getDaysBetween(new Date(), dateOfFile) > numDays) {
                            this.deleteFile(entry.getPathLower());
                            numberFilesDeleted++;
                        }
                    }
                }
                if (!result.getHasMore()) {
                    return numberFilesDeleted;
                }
                try {
                    result = client.files().listFolderContinue(result.getCursor());
                } catch (DbxException e) {
                    //ALPHA - TIDY UP HERE.  CATCHING or THROWING??? - GDPR - Note what you're logging
                    //  log.info("Could NOT get listFolderContinue");
                }
            }
        }
        return numberFilesDeleted;
    }

Thanks for the post! Dropbox doesn't offer a way to do this automatically via the API. I'm sending this along as feature requests for created and modified times for folders, as well as a native way to have Dropbox automatically delete files after a certain amount of time. I can't promise if/when these would be implemented though.

Hello Greg,

Was there any progress on that?

Thanks,

Luk

LukFromTheSky No, unfortunately I don't have an update on either of these feature requests.

I'm a little shocked there isn't a way to do this.  Has there been any progress on implementing this functionality?

TateFF No, unfortunately I don't have any news on this request.

Is there a reason this feature isn't being built?

mpk2 I can't speak to why Dropbox may have decided to work on any particular feature request or not. This feature request is still open and I'll follow up here with any updates if/when I have anything to share. I don't have any news on this right now though.

This would be a very helpful feature for companies like mine as we are dealing with 1000s of clinet's files and we only need them for 3 months. After 3 months they can be deleted from Dropbox automaticly instead we go through all files. It would be nice to have an option for not deleted from local computer.