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Can we have the Command Line Interface for Windows/Mac?

Can we have the Command Line Interface for Windows/Mac?

Halil Ş.
New member | Level 1

Even though, there is a command line interface on linux (which has start, stop and, soon, pause options), there seems to be no equivalent feature on windows nor on mac. This feature should be easily transferable. I see no technical reasons why this cannot be possible (especially to mac), is there any?

Latest Update
Jay
Dropbox Staff

This idea has been closed as it has reached the end of the Share an Idea process.

Status changed to: Closed
43 Comments
Brian C.64
New member | Level 2

+1 for a scriptable way to view the sync status and to pause and unpause.  Also, to be able to set time windows where sync should go full speed, and times when it should be throttled back (or the ability to throttle by command line).

bene20
Helpful | Level 5

Things would be better and easy if we have dropbox cli in windows like we have in Linux. "dropbox status", "dropbox start", "dropbox stop" are the top three command, but the others commands are very usefull too.

I have a script to shutdown my linux workstation when dropbox is up to date, a script to automaticaly ignore too big files, and other routines too. Unfortunatelly it is impossible to do in windows because there is no way to know dropbox status or include/ignore files and folders by command line.

deckerrj05
New member | Level 2

I haven't actually tried this with a Raspberry Pi but I have with x86/x86-64 based machines and it worked.

You might be able to install dropbox onto a network attached Raspberry Pi and plug in an external hard drive to the Pi. (For external hard drives you might need a powered usb hub if the EHD requires power [the Pi won't have enough juice to power it, unless you boost its usb output current from about 600mA to 1.2A - which I read might damage your Pi {oh and configure /etc/fstab to auto-mount the drive if you restart the pi} ] ).

Use putty to control/setup your headless Rpi-NAS server remotely.

Map a network drive between your pc to the network attached storage (install and setup samba on the Pi for this [and change password to make it secure]).

Oh, almost forgot. You can use Chron to schedule tasks and maybe use that with some scripting language like BASH or Python.

Chron: (Like task scheduler but for GNU/Linux)

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/usage/cron.md

If you get the Pi to work, let me know. Here are some very helpful guides:

Raspbian: (The lite version takes up way less space.)

https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/

Putty SSH client: (for remote access from windows)

http://www.putty.org/

Dropbox for Raspbian:

https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/dropbox-raspberry-pi/

/etc/fstab guide:

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-finding-using-uuids-to-update-fstab/

passwd: make it secure

https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/linux/usage/users.md

Samba:

http://raspberrywebserver.com/serveradmin/share-your-raspberry-pis-files-and-folders-across-a-networ...

BASH:

http://ryanstutorials.net/bash-scripting-tutorial/

Python: (make sure you select the correct Python version before reading the wrong tutorial)

https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/

Lukaka
New member | Level 2

I would definatly like this feature! Its useful for gaming since Dropbox uses a lot of internet just to check in.

Brad B.22
Helpful | Level 5

There's currently no good reliable option for interacting with Dropbox from the CLI from Windows.

In Linux there's Dropbox-Uploader which is a bash script that works great and uses API V2, however to use on Windows you need to load Cygwin and it's cumbersome for scripting.

There are a couple of projects that I've stumbled across for Windows, but the only one I've found to work will be EOL soon. Dropbox should create an official Windows CLI solutions that would allow you to perform basic tasks for the purpose of being scripted.

dbxcli - in beta and partially works.

PneumaticTube - Used API V1 so it will stop working soon, however it works perfectly now.

simpson b.
Helpful | Level 7

I use reparse points (junctions). These folders do not propagate changes (as I'm sure you all now by now) and thus don't sync. Now, Dropbox patrols these folders and eventually syncs (which is 99% of why I am a Dropbox user, BTW). However, sometimes I would like to trigger a sync, for example after a backup runs, so I can check of the backup is fine and I can go to bed.

I could kill and restart DropBox, but that's bad for it (I assume) and also it leaves an icon in the try area every restart. For rarely supervized machines that's annoying at the very least.

Both these cases could be solved by a db_cli.exe that simply posts the command to the running instance if there is one. It could be as easy as putting the command you wish executed in a registry value and Dropbox patrolling it and executing it (then emptying the value).

Simple commands as "PAUSE", "RESUME", "INDEX" and "EXIT" will probably do.

I know this is a trivial issue, but Dropbox is generally a very good service and I have nothing else to suggest.

critStock
Helpful | Level 5

+1 for command line support in Windows

My usage: a database that can get damaged by a bad edit/sync confluence. I'd like to be able to start the db interface with a batch that first pauses dropbox, then a scheduler entry that unpauses dropbox when the db interface closes. Thanks!

hvisage
Explorer | Level 3
Bummer, but how would I do this stop/start on MacOSX?
hvisage
Explorer | Level 3
+1 also need a pause/unpause via CLI (For controlplane stop/start type service
SwanCobb
Collaborator | Level 10

Don't forget there is also dbxcli: https://github.com/dropbox/dbxcli works on all platforms

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