Mirror/sync contents of two folders on dropbox

Question

Hello,

I have files in a folder in Dropbox that is shared with others. I want to have the contents of that folder automatically appear in Overleaf, but apparently for the Dropbox-Overlead synchronization the only method is as follows: "an Overleaf folder [is] created in your Dropbox Apps folder. Each project will be synchronized with a folder in Dropbox under Apps/Overleaf. Note: It’s not possible to specify which Dropbox folder you want to sync your Overleaf projects to. Due to a Dropbox limitation, your files will always be synced to the Dropbox Apps/Overleaf folder."

So the workaround I have thought of is to have the files I put in this shared Dropbox folder also appear in the specified folder in Dropbox under Apps/Overleaf. Is it possible to mirror/sync the contents of these two folders, so that the same files are always in both?

Thank you

Jay · Answer

Hi @jacobg6, to add onto what @Rich said, when an app developer uses their own app folder in the Apps location, this folder unlike others in the Dropbox account cannot be shared to any other user, as it is private to your account.

Rich · Answer

@jacobg6 wrote:Is it possible to mirror/sync the contents of these two folders, so that the same files are always in both?

Dropbox doesn't do that. You'd have to use a third-party utility to keep two separate folders in sync. If you're on Windows, Microsoft's SyncToy could do it.

"Due to a Dropbox limitation, your files will always be synced to the Dropbox Apps/Overleaf folder."

To be clear, this isn't a limitation of Dropbox, but to the permission level the Overleaf developers chose when creating their integration with Dropbox. App developers can choose between App Folder access where an app only has access to its own, specific app folder, or full access, where an app has full access to everything in your Dropbox. It would seem that Overleaf chose App Folder access so their app is locked to the Apps/Overleaf folder.