Get metadata for batch of files

[alexz]

Hi everyone,

Does anyone know how to get metadata for a batch of files?

I'm querying the files via "list_folder" / "list_folder/continue" but since December 2, 2019 it doesn't return "media_info". The question is how to get metadata for these files (especially "media_info->time_taken")? E.g. if "list_folder" has returned 500 files how can I get this data for all of them? 500 separate requests to "get_metadata" look a little bit overwhelming.

Is there is any other way?

Thanks.

[Greg-DB]

Unfortunately there isn't a batch way to get metadata with media info, but I'll pass this along as a feature request. I can't promise if or when that might be implemented though. 

[alexz]

Thank you for the information. But how to deal with `API rate limit error: too_many_requests` in this case?

[Greg-DB]

That error indicates that you're hitting a rate limit, so you'd need to catch that error and have your app wait before trying again. The Dropbox API has a rate limiting system in order to protect against high rates of calls. Note that not all 429s and 503s indicate explicit rate limiting, but in any case that you get a 429 or 503 the best practice is to retry the request, respecting the Retry-After header if given in the response, or using an exponential back-off, if not.