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23W's avatar
23W
Helpful | Level 5
6 years ago

How can I list content of sharded folder that has not mounted yet?

How can I list content of sharded folder that has not been mounted yet?

  • The Dropbox API functionality for listing folders is generally only meant for mounted content, but you can technically list the contents of an unmounted folder by calling /2/files/list_folder with the 'preview_url' (e.g., from the shared folder metadata) as the 'shared_link.url' parameter, like:

    curl -X POST https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/files/list_folder \
        --header "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
        --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
        --data "{\"path\": \"\", \"shared_link\": {\"url\": \"<PREVIEW_URL>\"}}"
    
  • Greg-DB's avatar
    Greg-DB
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

    The Dropbox API functionality for listing folders is generally only meant for mounted content, but you can technically list the contents of an unmounted folder by calling /2/files/list_folder with the 'preview_url' (e.g., from the shared folder metadata) as the 'shared_link.url' parameter, like:

    curl -X POST https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/files/list_folder \
        --header "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
        --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
        --data "{\"path\": \"\", \"shared_link\": {\"url\": \"<PREVIEW_URL>\"}}"
    
    • 23W's avatar
      23W
      Helpful | Level 5

      Greg-DB, thank you. It really works.

      But next question appears: if such folder contains sub-folders, how to browse them?

      "/2/files/lits_folder" returns list of sub-folders with theirs Ids. Direct attempt to use one of them with "/2/files/lits_folder" returns error "path not found". If i try to use "/2/sharing/get_folder_metadata" with sub-folder's id, i receive error "invalid id".
      All those Ids have prefix like "id:_XXXXXX".

      • Greg-DB's avatar
        Greg-DB
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

        The "id" values for the listed items, starting file "id:", is the "file ID", which is different than a "shared folder ID", so you can't use that for /2/sharing/get_folder_metadata, 

        You can use the "path" parameter to list a subfolder when accessing a shared link via /2/files/list_folder though. That would look like:

        curl -X POST https://api.dropboxapi.com/2/files/list_folder \
            --header "Authorization: Bearer <ACCESS_TOKEN>" \
            --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
            --data "{\"path\": \"/subfoldername\", \"shared_link\": {\"url\": \"<PREVIEW_URL>\"}}"

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