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Programmatically Process Shared Link Folders and Sub-Folders and Their Contents
Well I'm still at a loss.
I have the shared link to a folder that I need to check on a daily schedule to see if there's new files. The logic of which is all fine, but I just can't access anythi...
Greg-DB
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorRight, whenever possible, it's best to avoid unnecessarily uploading/downloading locally, for the sake of reliability and efficiency. Passing a link between two services, if supported, would likely be faster.
In this case, if you need a direct link to a file hosted on Dropbox, the specifics will depend on if the file exists in the Dropbox account you're connected to via the API (i.e., the one for which you have an access token).
If the file is in the connected account, /2/files/get_temporary_link would be a good option. That gives you a direct link to the file content, that you could hand off to the other service. Note that these links only last for four hours.
If the file is not in the connected account though, and say, you just have a shared link, /2/files/get_temporary_link won't work. Instead, this will depend on the shared link you have. If the shared link is already for the file itself, you can modify it for direct access as covered here. However, if the shared link is just for a parent folder, as discussed through this thread, then unfortunately there isn't a good solution. As earlier, the API doesn't offer a way to get a link to just the nested file based on a shared link to the folder that contains it.
Thanks again for coming back on this, mate. Really very much appreciated.
One last question ... how about the whole folder? That is, we know, not nested, and available at root.
Is there any internal reason given as to why the access to Shared Files is so antiquated (sorry) ... or ... let's be honest ... restrictive ... next to the rest of the interface? It seems ... odd. Particularly given the removal of RSS and the way that people use Shared Folders.
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Also, not for nothing, but then this particular guide should include that Shared Sub-Folders are essentially not accessible via the API:
DBX File Access Guide - Dropbox (the "Non-downloadable files" section)
- Greg-DB
Thanks for the feedback! I can't speak to why any particular feature was or wasn't implemented, but we appreciate you taking the time to share this. I'll send it along.
If you have a shared link for a folder and wish to get a direct link to that, you can likewise modify that as documented here. For folders, that will give you a .zip file of the folder.
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