The Community is undergoing a major upgrade. Find out more, ask us questions or share your thoughts here.
Forum Discussion
23W
6 years agoHelpful | Level 5
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-DBDropbox 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>\"}}"
- 23WHelpful | 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-DBDropbox 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>\"}}"
About Dropbox API Support & Feedback
Find help with the Dropbox API from other developers.
5,875 PostsLatest Activity: 27 minutes agoIf you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.
For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.
If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!