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Sharing of folders inside the Apps/ folder

I have an application (madoko.net) where users rely on shared folders in dropbox to cooperate.

However, I now need to give the application access to a users' entire dropbox and I would like to make it a restricted application under Apps/Madoko. Unfortunately, currently users are unable to share folders inside the Apps subfolder.

Since the introduction of the recent sharing API I was hoping to see dropbox supporting this too. Is this feature still planned??

Thanks!,

-- Daan

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Comments

Asaf Pinhassi

Luca M.11

The feature requested by @Daan would definitely be useful in an app I'm building.

It's a Core Data based app, and I use Dropbox to share the database between different users. Would be awesome if the could be done accessing the app folder only, both for convenience and security reasons.

Please consider it

Luca

Sebastian H.1

I'd also appreciate the ability to share app folders without requiring full access. Thanks for considering it.

Chris W.110

Our company has recently started a subscription to istock. With istock's dropbox integration it will save any stock images we download to a subfolder within the Apps folder. Since I can't share the apps folder with the other designers and account execs on my team this feature is near worthless. The apps folder needs the ability to be shared. Making it a team folder would be ideal.

As of now I am turning off the istock integration with dropbox until this issue is resolved.

Rick W.2

Chris W. -- take a look at app.mover.io I found this to resolve the same issue you are having. I set it to move from the Dropbox app folder into another Dropbox folder that is shareable. I have it set to do daily moves but it can be set to do hourly. It has a lot of flexibility beyond what I am doing with it. It has been reliable for me, though I've only used it for about a month so I cannot say that it will not have issues.

Pavlo S.1

Mark

As of now I am turning off the istock integration with dropbox until this issue is resolved.

Not sure if you are aware, but, iStock wrote that code themselves. It isnt Dropbox's so if it isnt working for you tell them and ask them if they can change it in future releases.

Ben R.14

+1.

It's very disappointing that no attention seems to have been paid to this yet. There are a class of apps for which personal linkage is perfect. But there's another whole class of apps which want to use Dropbox for collaboration, and it's disappointing that this is only possible by granting the app access to the whole of Dropbox.

I'd be very happy if this became a third class of access - i.e. the existing 'appfolder' and 'full dropbox', could stay just as they are, and be joined by a new third class, "app specific folder" or "shareable app folder".

Assuming that the difficulty relates to the fact that any folder shared in Dropbox is shared at the top-level, my suggestion would be that in this new third option, the folder for the app would be created at the top-level, rather than inside the "Apps" folder. Perhaps it could have a prefix, e.g. if the app is called "MyApp", the folder could be "app_MyApp" or similar.

Greg-DB

Thanks for the continued feedback everyone! This is something we'd like to offer, but unfortunately there are some significant changes we'd have to make on the backend for this so I can't make any promises.

Arnd S.

CIRS U.

Alexander S.33

Also in dire need for this. We are using Dropbox for business, with an internal app to store some data in the Dropbox FS.

Not being able to share this internal folder with the team is tricky. Ideally we'd be able to share sub-folders within the app-directory individually, but only being able to share the whole app directory would also help.

Soren J.

How disapointng

Didnt you think before you started

"maybe our users need to be able to share an app folder."

and the answer you guys came up with was

"naaah thats not the point of dropbox.... who wants to share folders?"

Holy macaroni

I made an APP for some customers just to realize it will never work.

PLZ make it soonish

Glenn G.6

I try to avoid +1 pile ons, but I think there's some nuance that's been overlooked in the previous explanations on why this is valuable for various use cases. From the very first benefit statement at the top of the homepage:

"Get to all your files from anywhere, on any device, and share them with anyone."

There needs to be a really big asterisk on that now. My most fundamental expectation of Dropbox is that I can share the files saved on it. And it's a completely broken expectation with these 3rd party integrations. All of the ones I've previously used are now basically worthless to me because their value was riding on an assumption that if/when needed I'd be able to easily share the files (e.g., the iStockphoto integration mentioned previously, every markdown editor on my iDevice, anything that uses Dropbox /Apps folder as a replacement for iCloud).

As an integrator I'm also pretty annoyed (to put it mildly) that I've wasted months refining a Dropbox workflow with this glaring omission feature support. As per the best practices of "use the minimum permissions you need", this limitation should be pointed out as a huge flashing caveat in the documentation (https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference). It's not even mentioned once.

😡

Rick W.2

I'm going to repeat an earlier post I made. Although it does not fix he basic problem, it odes provide a work-around that makes it possible to share files from app folders. I found App Mover (app.mover.io) and have used it for one application where I need to share files. It allows syncing files between cloud storage folders, even across providers. I sync from the app folder to another folder in Dropbox. That folder is outside of the app folder restrictions. For my purposes, having the sync run daily works, but it can run more frequently.

Luke T.

@Gregory

Please can you give us a vague timeline on when we would be able to share an Apps folder with with external parties.

This greatly undermines Dropbox as a cloud-based alternative to FTP.

+ 1.

Rich

Please can you give us a vague timeline

Dropbox generally does not provide timelines for upcoming changes. We usually find out about them once they're released.

Greg-DB

Hi Luke, Rich is correct, I can't make any promise as to if or when this would be possible. We try not to offer timelines in general, since plans can always change anyway, and we wouldn't want to have offered bad guidance if/when they do.

Tony.

We have encountered this issue also. I need to share a folder within the APP folder to sync notes to an iPhone App with a coleague.

Trav F.

Could really use this basic feature, this is crippling my workflow. Thanks

TourFactory P.

I've got an app for Dropbox where some of our customers require the ability to share the folder. I just recently switched to the app folder permission and now I'm having to go back to the full permission due to this crippling the work-flow of our customers. I'm hoping that Dropbox approves my new production request or allows app folders to be shared very soon.

Jason C.34

One of the workflows we were hoping to achieve with drop box was allowing our various reporting servers to automatically upload files to drop box so the team can access them. Since we can't share the app folder this workflow is completely impossible as giving the app complete dropbox access is a security issue.

The old (very poor) work around I've seen so far is creating a share link for the entire apps folder and giving that out to colleagues. But that is both a very poor user experience and has it's own security issues as we then can't segregate access to data from different servers.

Basically, drop box is useless for this and we have to stick with emailing the files

Bob_Stein

Things that waste my time:

A dropbox folder that cannot be shared (in Apps).
A dropbox API that cannot access files in a particular shared folder (not in Apps).
A dropbox cloud folder (in Apps) that shows a SHARE button that does nothing but scold you for using it (see below).
Norman doors.

Bill B.9

[Post removed by moderator due to abusive nature.]

Rich

Keep it civil, everyone, please. You can easily express your opinions of the service or company without resorting to abusive posts. Thank you.

Bill B.9

Sorry I thought that behaving in an arrogant, rude, ignorant, Trump-like manner was the new normal for getting your point across. I hopefully stand corrected.

However, you should fix this or at least admit it is not a technical issue. Your management just doesn't want to do it and/or doesn't really care that your customers want it.

Aaron C.1

Oh well, I suppose I'll just use a full access account and create another DB account to share our folder with. We just have export spreadsheets that we need to share with an app so this should work.

Dave C.39

Dropbox = Easy sharing with other people

BUT

Dropbox Apps Folder = Does not share with other people

Please fix.

Davis A.

This is such a pain. The only way I can share files with an app on my 'phone is via the apps folder, and I have other people that also need access to this data via Dropbox and I cannot share it? This is one of the few times I've encountered dropbox crippling essential functionality.

Now I'll have to manage multiple copies of files and the ensuing logistical nightmare of the copies getting out of sync.

Profitable Web

Hi,

Enjoyed your bad doors video.

Have you or anyone here tried the teams API https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/teams does that allow shared apps folders amongst team users?

Cheers,

Tim Woolfson
www.profitablewebprojects.com