DropBox API - token is short lived, why?

Question

I'm trying to set up access to DropBox for some "enterprisey" tasks (we have a shared DropBox workspace where I work).

I've registered an OAuth2 app and went through https://www.dropbox.com/oauth2/authorize to get an authorization code and then used POST to https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token to exchange the code for a token.

Question:

The access token starts with "sl." which as I understand means is a short-lived token. There is an "expires_in: 14400" stanza which is 4 hours.

How can I get a non-expiring, permanent token?

My app is in "Development" status - is that why? I was not planning to apply for Production status because the "app's" only purpose is to get an access token, but if that's why, then I will have to.

Any recommendations?

Greg-DB · Accepted Answer

Dropbox is no longer offering the option for creating new long-lived access tokens. Dropbox is now issuing short-lived access tokens (and optional refresh tokens) instead of long-lived access tokens. You can find more information on this migration here. This applies whether the app is in development or production status.

Apps can still get long-term access by requesting "offline" access though, in which case the app receives a "refresh token" that can be used to retrieve new short-lived access tokens as needed, without further manual user intervention. You can find more information in the OAuth Guide and authorization documentation. There's a basic outline of processing this flow in this blog post which may serve as a useful example.