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Direct file upload to Dropbox

depotsy

Hello!

I'm writing a small Node.js web app to upload files to Dropbox.

Typically the file is first uploaded to the server and then uploaded to Dropbox.

However, this results in wasted time and resource consumption when working with large files.

Is there a way to upload a file directly from the browser under the user's own Dropbox account?

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Здравко

Hi @depotsy,

It depends on how large are those files. One option, for not very large files, is usage of Dropbox Saver; take a look here for example. Other option is implemented client side application (in addition to your server side application) working with upload session; largest possible file would be 350GB.

Hope this gives direction.

Greg-DB

@depotsy As Здравко said, you can implement uploads client-side.

And while you don't need to use an official SDK, we do recommend doing so if possible. For example, the official Dropbox JavaScript SDK supports running in client-side browser JavaScript.

There are a few options for uploading to the user's own Dropbox account:

filesUpload for smaller files
filesUploadSessionStart, etc. for larger files
filesSaveUrl (or the Dropbox Saver) for smaller files hosted at URLs

Or if don't want to rely on them having a shared folder with you, you can use copy references to copy files between accounts:

filesCopyReferenceGet on the file in the user's account, and then
filesCopyReferenceSave in your account

Or if you don't want to rely on the user having their own Dropbox account at all, there is an option for client-side uploading to your own account without exposing your access token to the user:

filesGetTemporaryUploadLink for smaller files; you would run this server-side in your account, then pass the link to the user's browser and upload to the link from there