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Determine which file is which in .dropbox.cache.

I am trying to make a dropbox integration that takes into account both the web API and the desktop client. The desktop client doesn't have an API of its own, so I have to use some hacks to get what I want. I can already map local files to online files by using the JSON file to find the root folder. As shown here https://help.dropbox.com/installs-integrations/desktop/locate-dropbox-folder

However, I would also like to know the sync progress of files. I see that whenever I sync something, the file is first downloaded to ".dropbox.cache\new_files". It seems to have some random name (which is not the ID of the file).

Is there any way to determine which file is being synced by looking in the new_files folder? The idea is to then show progress by dividing the size on disk of that file by the online file size.

Does anyone have an idea how I could match this temporary file to the actual file?

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Accepted answers

Greg-DB

No, unfortunately Dropbox doesn't offer any way to check the desktop client sync status or identify files in the cache like this, but I'll pass this along as a feature request. I can't promise if or when that might be implemented though.

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Greg-DB

vsTheijs

Hi Greg, thanks for the input.

Do you know if there could be any other creative ways to check the sync status? When something is being synced, it shows this blue arrow icon. I guess it is stored somewhere on that file to tell file explorer which icon to show. Do you know if there is a way to get that information from that file? (I'm only interested in Windows.)

Greg-DB

I don't know of any ways to do so unfortunately. I couldn't recommend any unofficial/unsupported methods anyway, as they'd be subject to change without notice.

vsTheijs

Got it. I'll have to see how to handle this situation then. Thanks for the quick reply.