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How to retrieve Shared Folder and Modifier information in /metadata call

I'm having issues with the shared_folder and modifier fields being returned in /metadata. I can't seem to get the API to return anything for shared_folder, and modifier always comes back as null.

The files in the folder I'm calling /metadata on have all been shared with another account. I've done this sharing using both /shares and through the UI, and I can visit the folders from a different account, so I know the files are shared.

I've made modifications from both accounts to the files. The rev has changed in response to these so I know that they took.

I've also shared the folder that the files are in as well (and the folder is not the root).

I'm setting the include_membership parameter to true as well. I've tried with and without this param.

I'm kind of stumped as to what else I can try. Any ideas why I can't get these fields back from the API?

Thanks.

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Greg-DB

Can you post a sample request/response so we can take a look? Or, feel free to open an API ticket if you'd prefer to send it privately.

PIttsburgh Menn

I've edited out any tokens / unique identifiers with dashes. Let me know if you need the hashes or revs and I can open a private ticket.

This is the request from Fiddler:

GET https://api.dropbox.com/1/metadata/auto/Test?include_deleted=False&include_membership=True HTTP/1.1
Authorization: Bearer ---------------
Accept: application/json, application/xml, text/json, text/x-json, text/javascript, text/xml
User-Agent: RestSharp/104.4.0.0
Host: api.dropbox.com
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Connection: Keep-Alive

Here is the response:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: nginx
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2015 18:31:00 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
Connection: keep-alive
x-content-type-options: nosniff
set-cookie: gvc=-------------------; expires=Mon, 20 Apr 2020 18:31:00 GMT; httponly; Path=/; secure
x-server-response-time: 87
x-dropbox-request-id: ----------------
pragma: no-cache
cache-control: no-cache
x-dropbox-http-protocol: None
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
Content-Length: 690


{
   "read_only":false,
   "hash":"--------------------",
   "revision":1615,
   "bytes":0,
   "thumb_exists":false,
   "rev":"----------",
   "modified":"Tue, 14 Apr 2015 21:43:04 +0000",
   "size":"0 bytes",
   "path":"/Test",
   "is_dir":true,
   "modifier":null,
   "root":"dropbox",
   "contents":[
      {
         "rev":"--------------",
         "thumb_exists":false,
         "path":"/Test/Training Relevant Courses.txt",
         "is_dir":false,
         "client_mtime":"Tue, 21 Apr 2015 23:21:29 +0000",
         "icon":"page_white_text",
         "read_only":false,
         "modifier":null,
         "bytes":2947,
         "modified":"Tue, 21 Apr 2015 23:21:29 +0000",
         "size":"2.9 KB",
         "root":"dropbox",
         "mime_type":"text/plain",
         "revision":1617
      }
   ],
   "icon":"folder"
}

Thanks for the help.

Greg-DB

It looks like the /Test folder isn't a shared folder (e.g., looking at the icon, which is folder, but would be folder_user for shared folders). It sounds like you mean you only shared it via a shared link. These are actually two different kinds of sharing that Dropbox offers, and include_membership only applies to the former.

Specifically, "shared folders" refers to this feature:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/19

And "shared links" (which is what /shares returns) refers to this feature:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/167

If you've only shared the folder/files using shared links, they don't have any membership to report.

PIttsburgh Menn

Perfect! This was exactly my problem. Everything is returning correctly now. Is there any way to share folders like this through the API? I'm not seeing anything in either the Core API or the Business API.

Greg-DB

No, unfortunately the API doesn't currently offer any calls for managing shared folders, so you can't use it to programmatically share folders like that.

However, if you'd be interested in potentially participating in a shared folder API beta in the future, please sign up here:

https://dropboxapi.wufoo.com/forms/dropbox-shared-folder-api-beta-contact-info/

PIttsburgh Menn

Good to know. I've signed up for that beta. This is definitely a feature we'd want in our application. Thanks again.