Is there programatical way to know that shared link is link for deleted file?

[AlexK]

Hi

There is shared link for file. If file is deleted then link returns Dropbox page with message:

That file isn’t here anymore

And returned HTTP status for request is 200. For example

https://www.dropbox.com/s/pg29qcvw190eupr/%231111-11.jpg?raw=1

May be, this is good for user. But this does not allow to know programatically that file is absent.

Is there way having shared link to know programatically that file was deleted?

[Greg-DB]

The shared link itself isn't a good interface for this unfortunately, as it will return a 200 showing an HTML error page for the user, as you noted.

Instead, I recommend using the API. You can use the /2/sharing/get_shared_link_metadata endpoint to get information about a shared link:

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

If the link is still active, you'll get the metadata back. If the file or folder has been deleted, you'll get a 409 with a shared_link_not_found error.

[AlexK]

For to use get_shared_link_metadata the access token is needed. Recipient of shared link cannot know access token of file owner.

Is there way to get metadata of shared link without specifying access token?

If this is not possible at current time then, may be, it can be changed?

(Possibility to get metadata of shared link on side of recipient can be useful for some application. And it seems this does not violate security as anyway link allows to get content of file)

[Greg-DB]

Unfortunately, that endpoint does require an access token. I'll send this along as a feature request to eliminate that requirement, but I can't make any promises.

For reference though, it doesn't need to be an access token for the owner of the link. It can be any user.