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Smart Sync Sync CLI or AppleScript

When I move an "Online only" file into a "Local" folder, the file stays "Online Only", and the folder changes to a "mixed" state. Is there a way with Smart Sync to force anything I move from an "online only" folder to a "Local" folder to changes the state of the file to local?

We're looking for an automated way, via the command line, an applescript, whatever- that forces files to download to a "local" state when a script runs that moves online only files into a local "to do" folder.

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Comments

Greg-DB

Dropbox unfortunately doesn't provide any sort of programmatic interface for managing these Smart Sync settings, but I'll pass this along as a feature request.

warpedgeoid

Consider this a +1 to the request for some sort of command-line interface for controlling SmartSync.

Not only is Dropbox's GUI client lacking MANY sorely needed features (I assume using usability as an excuse, like everyone else), but the lack of decent CLI tools means that I can't even work around these missing features using my own scripts. I know that the majority of DB users are probably syncing a handful of Word documents, a few images, and maybe a video or two, but a few of us are using DB to store hundreds of thousands of files in complex directory structures. It'd be great to run a few scripts to mark files as cloud-only instead of having to go through and do it using the Finder/Explorer integration.

Greg-DB

Thanks for the feedback @warpedgeoid! I'll send it along to the team.

DBalling

Can I just chime in and "Me Too" this request?

I've got a number of automated scripts which create sizeable files which - once created and put in the dropbox folder - I no longer need sitting on the local machine. It'd be great to add something to the script which, after moving it into dropbox, followed up with a command of some sort to set that file to "Cloud Only" instead of "Local".

Greg-DB

Thanks!

DavidHuey

+1 for us as well.

StevenTammen

+1 for me too.

Several other companies using an "only sync to local when you need to" model (e.g., ODrive) have a setting that enables you to have files get automatically set from local to cloud if they have not been accessed within a timeout period (a week, say).

Even more than this would be excellent though, particularly if there was CLI integration. Making all files of extension X online only, or all files matching a particular regular expression, all files in folder Y with Z characteristics, etc. would make this feature significantly more useful. Having to manually set files back to online only obviates most of the advantages, in my opinion. You have to constantly remember to manually remove local files you no longer need rapid access too.

This strikes me as a problem that would easy to automate, and for that reason I think it would be worth implementing sooner rather than later.

Greg-DB

Thanks for the detailed feedback!

tekacs

+1 to this request - using developer tooling (e.g. code editors, git, search, etc.) is made very difficult by being unable to manipulate Smart Sync programmatically.

Really all that would be required would be the ability to switch files/folders to/from Online Only, whether through a command line tool, extended attributes or otherwise.

Thanks!

AlmightyOatmeal

+1

I would really like this feature!

I'm running into a problem with the OS X Finder extension so I don't have control over what paths can take advantage of Smart Sync (aside from new directories). Being able to control this from the API would be INVALUABLE to me.

mashdar

+1 for smart sync CLI. This would allow us as a company to customize our user syncing along exactly the metrics we care about.

I've felt a bit hamstrung by the lack of tuning Dropbox provides, although it's gotten a bit better lately. If I had a smart sync CLI, we could tune the settings exactly how we want. (E.g., no local .rvt files on tablets.) This would be a big quality of life improvement for our firm.

danFLP

Have Dropbox managed to move this request forward? I’d also find it very useful to automate the process of changing the status of older files into an online status using a script or a built in feature to the GUI interface

Greg-DB

@danFLP No, unfortunately I don't have any news on this request. We appreciate the feedback, and I've sent it along to the team.

fullband

+1 for me too.

Daniel_Dosen

It's been more than a year for this request. Why don't you all get some open source repositiories and get help from the community for these things? You can still make sure that any API is as secure or more so than the desktop apps.

Greg-DB

@Daniel_Dosen Thanks for the idea! I'll pass it along.

lters

Me too. Pro user...

jockej

Chiming in here - would be amazing to be able to via some API toggle which files should be local/online. RegEX support would be superb, possibly even hidden behind some "advanced features" checkbox so normal users won't accidentaly mess up/get scared.

But a very basic and easily implementable feature would be to add a command line equivalent to right clicking and choosing local/online.

lters

It would be very helpful. Thinking here of mac and the linux clients.

AnthonyMargotta

+1 I would also like this!

rfiorentino

Yes, I'd appreciate this too. It's a little ridiculous that something simple like this has been asked for rather persistently for the last year or so, and still, nothing definitive has happened. I'm a software developer as well, so if I can offer any help in this, I'd be happy to...but let's start putting actions to words.

Greg-DB

Thanks for the additional feedback!

soid

+1, please. It would be useful.

campmdabt

We're trying to use this as well. We have some IT setup scripts that need to be accessible via dropbox and are accessed via the system profile in an automated fashion. Since the user owns the dropbox files, the system account doesn't force them to smart sync. Having a way to force a local sync of just one folder would be very useful to us.

varenc

@campmdabt I wanted to do the same thing and was sadly out of luck.

Of course you can cat a file to ensure Dropbox syncs it but that's a bit slow for a large directory. My solution was to read the first 10 bytes of every file in a folder recursively and in parallel. This triggers Dropbox to sync the files somewhat efficiently and without forcing you to read the contents of all the files. Here's the shell-fu to do it:
fd -0 -t file /path/to/sync | gparallel -j 30 -0 'dd if="{}" bs=10 count=1 > /dev/null '

That runs `dd` in 30 parallel threads. Requires the `fd` find alternative and GNU Parallel. But easy to make work with the standard `find` and `parallel` tools as well. Cheers.

++1

+1 This would be so helpful!

Joebennebennjoe

+1 to this please. I use a piece of software called hazel and I’d love to be able to programmatically allow files to be online only or available offline based on criteria.