Forum Discussion

rustyx2's avatar
rustyx2
Helpful | Level 5
9 years ago

How to list a shared directory via Dropbox API?

I am writing an app that needs to download all the files from a directory shared via a link.

But when a link is a folder, /2/sharing/get_shared_link_file returns:

HTTP/409 shared_link_is_directory/..



So then I invoke /2/sharing/get_shared_link_metadata, I get:

{
  ".tag": "folder",
  . . .
}



There is just an indication of a folder, but no way to see the contents of it.

However, when I access the same URL via a browser, I do see the contents and I am able to download the files without "mounting" the shared folder into my Dropbox.

So it appears to be possible via a Browser, but not via the API.

Is there a list_shared_folder API or something like it?

 

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

    API v2 doesn't return the file/folder listing for shared links, e.g., in SharedLinkMetadata/FolderLinkMetadata, unfortunately. I'll send this along as a feature request though.

     

    (A workaround would be to use the deprecated /1/metadata/link.)

    • rustyx2's avatar
      rustyx2
      Helpful | Level 5

      Indeed, using API v1 I was able to get the file list. Thanks a lot for the tip!

       

      I only hope that API v2 will support this before v1 is disabled :-O

    • tim's avatar
      tim
      Explorer | Level 4

      Hi Greg

      I am unable to migrate my app (Grab for Dropbox) to API v2 because of this issue.

      Please update us when you can deliver this for API v2 -- being able to list contents of a shared folder is a basic requirement, i'm surprised this is still missing from API v2. How are shared links supposed to be useful if you can't use the API to recurse the file structure?

      thanks

       

      • Greg-DB's avatar
        Greg-DB
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        Thanks for the feedback Tim! I'll add your feedback to the feature request, and be sure to update this thread with any information if/when I have it.

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