Dropbox API Client

12.0.2 · active · verified Thu Apr 09

The official Dropbox API Client for Python (v12.0.2) allows programmatic interaction with Dropbox services. It provides a comprehensive interface for file management, sharing, user account information, and more. The library maintains an active development cycle, with frequent updates often driven by API specification changes.

Warnings

breaking Starting with v12.0.0, the SDK no longer provides a hardcoded CA bundle. If your environment requires specific SSL certificate handling or you relied on the internal bundle, you may need to explicitly provide a `ca_certs` argument to the `Dropbox` client.
Fix: For specific SSL needs, provide your CA certificate path: `dbx = dropbox.Dropbox(token, ca_certs='/path/to/your/ca.pem')`
gotcha Versions prior to v12.0.2 had incorrect or overly strict dependency pinning for `requests` and `urllib3`, which could lead to conflicts with other libraries in your environment. These issues were resolved in v12.0.2.
Fix: Upgrade to `dropbox==12.0.2` or later to resolve potential dependency conflicts.
gotcha The `dropbox.Dropbox` client constructor expects a long-lived 'access token' (e.g., for OAuth2 or personal apps), not a short-lived 'authorization code'. Attempting to use an authorization code directly will result in an `AuthError`.
Fix: Ensure you are using a generated access token (e.g., from the Dropbox App Console or obtained via the OAuth flow after exchanging a code) when initializing the client. Store it securely, preferably in an environment variable.

Install

pip install dropbox Install stable version

Imports

Dropbox

import dropbox
dbx = dropbox.Dropbox(...)

AuthError

from dropbox.exceptions import AuthError

ApiError
```
from dropbox.exceptions import ApiError
```

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to authenticate with the Dropbox API using an access token loaded from the `DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN` environment variable and then list the contents of your Dropbox root folder.

import os
import dropbox
from dropbox.exceptions import AuthError, ApiError

DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN = os.environ.get('DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN', '')

if not DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN:
    print("Error: DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN environment variable not set.")
    print("Please set it to your Dropbox API access token.")
    exit(1)

try:
    # Initialize Dropbox client
    dbx = dropbox.Dropbox(DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN)

    # Test connection by listing files in the root folder
    print("\nConnected to Dropbox. Listing root folder content...")
    response = dbx.files_list_folder('')
    
    for entry in response.entries:
        print(f"  {entry.name} ({type(entry).__name__})")

    print("\nSuccessfully listed folder content.")

except AuthError:
    print("Error: Invalid or expired access token. Please check DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN.")
except ApiError as err:
    print(f"API Error: {err}")
except Exception as err:
    print(f"An unexpected error occurred: {err}")

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