Access to shared folders through app with link to dropbox.com inside

[Mellersen]

I have created an app with an app builder and I have added a section that automatically embeds the dropbox.com website through a link to the url html. When users access this section they login in dropbox with their credentials and can access its content as if they were visiting the dropbox website from their device. The problem is when a user tries to access files in folders that someone else has shared with him. When accessing the folders you can see the content that exists but you can not see or open the files and the web shows error 403. How can I solve that? Thank you very much for the answers!

[Greg-DB]

Unfortunately, the Dropbox API doesn't offer a general way to retrieve URLs for content on the Dropbox web site, so there isn't a way to arbitrarily generate URLs that will always work like this. The proper URL for things can vary based on different factors. I'll send this along as a feature request for a way to do this properly.

For shared folders in particular though, you can actually get a valid URL from SharedFolderMetadata.preview_url, e.g., as returned by /2/sharing/list_folders:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation#sharing-list_folders

[Mellersen]

Thank You... So, why can I see the contents of my shared folders and folders?

The error only appears when I click on a document inside a shared folder.
When I click on a file uploaded by me in a folder without sharing it does not give an error.

Thanks!

[Mellersen]

I'm not using the Dropbox Api, only accessing to Dropbox url, each user with their credentials.

[Greg-DB · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the clarifying. Using the Dropbox API is the only officially supported means for programmatically interacting with Dropbox, so I recommend using it if possible. Further, this is the support forum for the API, so I can't offer much help otherwise.

If you're copying Dropbox web site URLs across users, they won't necessarily work for the other users. If you're having trouble with the web site though, you can contact support here:

https://www.dropbox.com/support