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Dropbox Transfer Workarounds for Lack of API

Dear Dropbox Community,

Here is my current manual workflow that I wish to be able to automate.

Via the Dropbox website I create transfers to send documents securely to our faculty and I set both a password and an expiration date for the access. Which I then send to the instructors a separate email with the password.

Since I understand that at least as of the start of 2024, there was no Transfer API.

I am trying to find out if there is a work around that I could use to achieve a similar functionality?

Therefore, is there a way to (a) create folders and upload files? (b) password protect a folder? (c) share the folder with a user (and get the URL to send)? and (d) disable sharing on a specific date/time?

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Здравко

@GaryH_BAR01 wrote:
...
Therefore, is there a way to (a) create folders and upload files? ...

Hi @GaryH_BAR01,

Your point (a) is definitely possible.

@GaryH_BAR01 wrote:
... (b) password protect a folder? ...

You share a folder to particular person(s), so it doesn't need to be password protected. Only the audience, explicitly selected by you, can access the shared folder. That's why there is no way to set a password (it would be meaningless - if user doesn't authenticate, would still not be able to access the shared folder).

@GaryH_BAR01 wrote:
... (c) share the folder with a user (and get the URL to send)? ...

You don't need it. Dropbox does this for you if no explicitly set "quiet".

@GaryH_BAR01 wrote:
... and (d) disable sharing on a specific date/time?

Unfortunately your point (d) is impossible. There is no automated way to unshare a shared folder. You can organize such automation in your application though if needed - whenever needed just remove particular set of folder members.

You may be looking for something like creating a shared link. There you can set expiration date and password if/when you want. Receivers may download pointed content with or without Dropbox account. You may use raw access point (that I pointed to) as well as equivalent method of any supported Dropbox SDKs.

Hope this helps.

Greg-DB

@GaryH_BAR01 Dropbox does not offer an API for Dropbox Transfer, but I'll pass this along as a feature request. I can't promise if or when that might be implemented though.

As Здравко said though, the Dropbox API does offer the ability to create folders, upload files, and create shared links with specific access controls, and revoke shared links though. Similarly, you can share folders, and add and remove members.