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Brendan D.'s avatar
Brendan D.
Explorer | Level 4
11 years ago

How to backup files stored in Dropbox when using Sync API?

I have the requirement to allow the user to be able to backup all of their files. I have 3 locations I store files in my app. One is to store the files locally on the device. Second is to store the f...
API
Steve M.'s avatar
Steve M.
Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
11 years ago

Yes, you'd need to open each file (to download it or access a cached copy), and then add each to your zip file individually.

I think the difference that's surprising you as compared to iCloud Drive (from your description) is that the Sync API doesn't proactively maintain local copies of files in Dropbox. It does cache them once they're accessed (on a MRU basis), in which case accessing the file should be quite fast. If the files aren't already in the local cache, though, it will take time to download them.

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