How to access my personal account from the API?

[jwillette]

I tried to access my personal account through the python API, but it seems I cannot figure out how to do it. I created an App but then I can only access the App's folder and not my personal folders with all my other stuff in it (one directory higher outside of "Apps" directory).

Is it possible to have API access to my own personal account through the dropbox API or is this functionality reserved only for Apps? In the dialog where the OAuth accss token can be found, it says that the OAuth token will have access to the whole account with the email but it seems that is not true...

For instane, in the python API, when I use the method `dbx.files_list_folder()` I can only see the folders within my App and not my account folders... 

[Greg-DB · Accepted solution]

Yes, you can use the Dropbox API to access your entire account. The level of access that an app has depends on what permission it is registered for. It sounds like the OAuth flow you're looking at is for an app with full Dropbox access, but the app you registered yourself only has app folder access. You can find more information on the different permissions here:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/developer-guide#app-permissions

The permission for the app is chosen when first registering the app. Since you registered an app for the "app folder" permission, you'll need to register another one for the "Full Dropbox" permission instead, if you wish to use the API via your app to access other folders:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/apps/create

[jwillette]

That was the solution, thank you. I forgot I did this, and I originally thought that the folder created by the app would be able to be shared to other users which is why I restricted the API access to only that folder. After finding out this was not possible and wanting to access my main account, I had forgotten about that setting. It would really be more intuitive if the folder within the app could be shared like any other dropbox folder.

Thanks for the answer