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Authenticating with a custom mobile app
Hello,
I am developing an app for my company and it needs to access Dropbox files on a regular basis. I often see in other apps the ability to connect with Dropbox, which presumably generates an access and refresh token pair to be used for Dropbox API access. Instead of writing my own login form, I would really like to use the Dropbox app on the phone to do the authentication. For example, the Adobe Reader app has a tab called 'Locations', which lists several cloud services. Tapping on 'Dropbox' opens the Dropbox app and the rest of the login flow happens there. When the user has successfully authenticated, the Dropbox app sends the user back to the Adobe Reader app.
From a development point of view, I have no idea what that process is called and I can't find any information about it. It's magical from a UX perspective and I desperately want to implement the same flow in my app. Any information at all about how those two apps are interacting to accomplish the seamless hand-off would be extremely helpful.
Thanks.
It sounds like you're describing the app authorization flow built in to the official Dropbox mobile SDKs. You can find those here:
- for Swift on iOS: https://github.com/dropbox/SwiftyDropbox
- for Objective-C on iOS: https://github.com/dropbox/dropbox-sdk-obj-c
- for Java: https://github.com/dropbox/dropbox-sdk-java (see Android example here)
If you use the provided functionality there, the SDK will do most of the work for you, such as automatically using the official Dropbox mobile app for the authorization step, when available.
3 Replies
- Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
It sounds like you're describing the app authorization flow built in to the official Dropbox mobile SDKs. You can find those here:
- for Swift on iOS: https://github.com/dropbox/SwiftyDropbox
- for Objective-C on iOS: https://github.com/dropbox/dropbox-sdk-obj-c
- for Java: https://github.com/dropbox/dropbox-sdk-java (see Android example here)
If you use the provided functionality there, the SDK will do most of the work for you, such as automatically using the official Dropbox mobile app for the authorization step, when available.
Thanks for the reply. I am looking through the links you provided to learn more. Do you happen to know if there are any examples of how to integrate the SDK(s) in a React Native app?
- Greg-DB
No, unfortunately the Dropbox SDKs don't officially support React Native.
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