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    <title>topic Re: Understanding how the metadata API works and updates files in Dropbox API Support &amp; Feedback</title>
    <link>https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-API-Support-Feedback/Understanding-how-the-metadata-API-works-and-updates-files/m-p/402631#M21990</link>
    <description>&lt;P&gt;For reference, note that there are two different "metadata" concepts to be aware of when using&amp;nbsp;Dropbox and the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API:&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;OL&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;The standard metadata used by&amp;nbsp;Dropbox, e.g., as returned as the "Metadata" types on the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API, such as via&amp;nbsp;&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-get_metadata" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/get_metadata&lt;/A&gt;. Third party apps can't set arbitrary/custom fields in this though.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;The custom metadata that API apps can set and store on&amp;nbsp;Dropbox via the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API, using &lt;A href="http://file_properties" target="_self"&gt;the 'file_properties' endpoints&lt;/A&gt;.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;/OL&gt;
&lt;P&gt;Also, to be clear with the terminology, there are two different types of "clients" that may be relevant here:&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;OL&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;The official&amp;nbsp;Dropbox desktop client, which automatically syncs files in the connected&amp;nbsp;Dropbox account to the local filesystem.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;Your third party desktop app, which you can write to perform whatever operations you wish via the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;/OL&gt;
&lt;P&gt;When a file changes, the official&amp;nbsp;Dropbox desktop client will update its local copy of the file to the latest version.&amp;nbsp;The official&amp;nbsp;Dropbox desktop client does not sync custom metadata from the 'file_properties' endpoints though.&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;And you're correct that webhooks wouldn't work with your&amp;nbsp;third party desktop app, as webhooks are designed to be used by servers.&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;For client-side apps like this, you would instead use the&amp;nbsp;&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-list_folder-longpoll" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/list_folder/longpoll&lt;/A&gt; functionality to get low-latency notification of changes to files. That unfortunately won't notify you of changes just to the 'file_properties' custom metadata though.&amp;nbsp;I'll pass this along as a feature request, but I can't promise if or when that might be implemented though.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;You'd instead need to poll&amp;nbsp;&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-list_folder" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/list_folder&lt;/A&gt;[&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-list_folder-continue" target="_self"&gt;/continue&lt;/A&gt;] or &lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-get_metadata" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/get_metadata&lt;/A&gt; as needed to check for changes to the 'file_properties' custom metadata.&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/P&gt;</description>
    <pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2020 15:33:46 GMT</pubDate>
    <dc:creator>Greg-DB</dc:creator>
    <dc:date>2020-03-16T15:33:46Z</dc:date>
    <item>
      <title>Understanding how the metadata API works and updates files</title>
      <link>https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-API-Support-Feedback/Understanding-how-the-metadata-API-works-and-updates-files/m-p/402437#M21986</link>
      <description>&lt;P&gt;Hi, I'm developing a desktop application that allows users to view and add file metadata.&amp;nbsp; The metadata is stored separately from the files themselves.&amp;nbsp; I'd like to integrate this with Dropbox, and I figured that Dropbox's metadata API was a logical thing to use.&amp;nbsp; In order for the application to work efficiently, it'll need to keep a cache of metadata on the client machine.&amp;nbsp; What I'm not clear on his how Dropbox will update a client when there's change to the Dropbox's server-side metadata.&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;In other words, imagine there are two synced client machines, each with an up-to-date cache of file metadata.&amp;nbsp; Suppose client 1 updates a particular file's metadata, so a change is made to both client 1's cache and using the HTTP Dropbox API.&amp;nbsp; Client 1 is now up-to-date.&amp;nbsp; Will anything happen on client 2's machine through Dropbox?&amp;nbsp; I know that if the content of the file had changed, a file update would be somehow pushed to client 2.&amp;nbsp; But does the metadata change do anything like that?&amp;nbsp; If not, can the API be used to force a change to client 2?&amp;nbsp; I don't think client 2 can use a webhook, because it's not a server, right?&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/P&gt;&lt;P&gt;As you can probably tell, I'm very new to this.&amp;nbsp; So thank you very much for any information or guidance.&lt;/P&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2020 00:28:11 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-API-Support-Feedback/Understanding-how-the-metadata-API-works-and-updates-files/m-p/402437#M21986</guid>
      <dc:creator>loop1213123</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2020-03-15T00:28:11Z</dc:date>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Re: Understanding how the metadata API works and updates files</title>
      <link>https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-API-Support-Feedback/Understanding-how-the-metadata-API-works-and-updates-files/m-p/402631#M21990</link>
      <description>&lt;P&gt;For reference, note that there are two different "metadata" concepts to be aware of when using&amp;nbsp;Dropbox and the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API:&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;OL&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;The standard metadata used by&amp;nbsp;Dropbox, e.g., as returned as the "Metadata" types on the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API, such as via&amp;nbsp;&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-get_metadata" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/get_metadata&lt;/A&gt;. Third party apps can't set arbitrary/custom fields in this though.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;The custom metadata that API apps can set and store on&amp;nbsp;Dropbox via the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API, using &lt;A href="http://file_properties" target="_self"&gt;the 'file_properties' endpoints&lt;/A&gt;.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;/OL&gt;
&lt;P&gt;Also, to be clear with the terminology, there are two different types of "clients" that may be relevant here:&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;OL&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;The official&amp;nbsp;Dropbox desktop client, which automatically syncs files in the connected&amp;nbsp;Dropbox account to the local filesystem.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;LI&gt;Your third party desktop app, which you can write to perform whatever operations you wish via the&amp;nbsp;Dropbox API.&lt;/LI&gt;
&lt;/OL&gt;
&lt;P&gt;When a file changes, the official&amp;nbsp;Dropbox desktop client will update its local copy of the file to the latest version.&amp;nbsp;The official&amp;nbsp;Dropbox desktop client does not sync custom metadata from the 'file_properties' endpoints though.&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;And you're correct that webhooks wouldn't work with your&amp;nbsp;third party desktop app, as webhooks are designed to be used by servers.&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;For client-side apps like this, you would instead use the&amp;nbsp;&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-list_folder-longpoll" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/list_folder/longpoll&lt;/A&gt; functionality to get low-latency notification of changes to files. That unfortunately won't notify you of changes just to the 'file_properties' custom metadata though.&amp;nbsp;I'll pass this along as a feature request, but I can't promise if or when that might be implemented though.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;You'd instead need to poll&amp;nbsp;&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-list_folder" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/list_folder&lt;/A&gt;[&lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-list_folder-continue" target="_self"&gt;/continue&lt;/A&gt;] or &lt;A href="https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#files-get_metadata" target="_self"&gt;/2/files/get_metadata&lt;/A&gt; as needed to check for changes to the 'file_properties' custom metadata.&lt;/P&gt;
&lt;P&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/P&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Mon, 16 Mar 2020 15:33:46 GMT</pubDate>
      <guid>https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-API-Support-Feedback/Understanding-how-the-metadata-API-works-and-updates-files/m-p/402631#M21990</guid>
      <dc:creator>Greg-DB</dc:creator>
      <dc:date>2020-03-16T15:33:46Z</dc:date>
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