sync only one folder on linux

[Jeff_S1]

I have a huge dropbox business account, and I'd like to sync one "deep" folder on a linux client.  This folder is deep in the folder hierarchy, so for example the folder: "folder 1/folder 2/folder 3" is the ONLY one I want downloaded to the linux client.

I tried: dropbox.py exclude add * ; dropbox.py exclude remove 'folder 1/folder 2/folder 3'

and various permutations of that, but I always still end up with:

dropbox.py exclude list
Excluded:
folder 1

What's the magical set of commands I need to issue to exclude everything - except one deep folder?

Or, do I need to create local paths for this deep folder on the client first?

[sydsyd]

Hi @Walter - I've found another workaround which is to just share a specific folder with another Dropbox.

This avoids syncing and excluding.

But pausing the sync after setting up the link was going to be my next step.

I think all of this can be avoided if there was a config file that could be read by the dropbox linux daemon to not sync specific folders in a list.

[Walter]

Glad to hear you got this sorted in the end and thanks for your feedback too @sydsyd - it's been noted in our system.

Please let us know if you have anything else to add. 

[jamespi]

just to be clear - was your solution to create a new dropbox account, share the folder with that account, then sync that new account?

i'm asking because that workaround will only work if you're either prepared to pay for new account or the contents of the folder are small enough to fit in a free 2GB account, so i want dropbox to be aware that it would still be helpful for them to fix the issue properly

[sydsyd]

No, the reverse.

Create a new account that has the actual files I wanted to sync with a larger dropbox that I didn't want to sync every folder.

[Concerned Citizen]

Hi @sydsyd  ,

Would you mind clarifying the "sharing single folder" solution?  Did you have to generate a public sharing link and then use that?  Or did you somehow manage to share the link *from* your Dropbox account and then again use the *same* Dropbox account in a different location with that link?

[sydsyd]

What I've got is a Dropbox account on a headless linux server that's FTP enabled. The linux account folder structure looks like this:

~account/Dropbox

~account/Dropbox/fred

~account/Dropbox/mary

~account/Dropbox/john

etc

I then send a share link for each of the user's folders Fred, Mary, John to the respective user.

That way, I don't need to sync Fred, Mary, John's folders to enable them to have FTP access to their dropbox.

[Concerned Citizen]

Hey, that is a pretty clever idea!  I hadn't even thought about using Dropbox as the backend home dir sync for different system users under Linux.  One quick followup question if you don't mind though.  In this scenario didn't you have to share an unprotected link with each of the users in this example?  I mean, those don't actually map back to 3 actually different Dropbox accounts, so Fred / Mary / John each got a shared link that they better keep super secret and private or else their files could be seen by others?

No wait, that doesn't make sense.  In your situation the authentication would have been controlled at the ftp level, right?  So the "link sharing" is all for your own administration of the directories on the backend.  So we're back to my original question of "are you sharing links with yourself"?  Sorry if I misunderstood something here; I'm really curious to know how this is working because my use case is still applicable to your approach (I'm trying to share a private wiki directory holding markdown files that I can sync local and remote on a headless Linux box).

[sydsyd]

I'm not sure what you mean by "share an unprotected link with each of the users".

I go to a computer with a desktop client. In my case a Mac that's logged in to the account that's syncing with the headless Linux server.

I right click on one of the folders and send a share to that user's account. I can give them edit or read only permissions. Once that user accepts, the folder will appear in that user's account.

[Concerned Citizen]

Got it, I understand now.  Thank you @sydsyd .

[sydsyd]

Give it a go and let me know how you get along.

The biggest issue I had to get this working was to have a stable installation of a headless Dropbox client on the Linux box.