Dropbox

In CloudMount

• Sign-in happens in your browser.
• Names are case-insensitive, and a space at the end of a name is stored as a look-alike character.
• Changes made elsewhere show up within about 15 seconds on Windows, except with the shared_files or shared_folders options on.

At a glance

Capability	Support
rclone support tier	Tier 1: Core
Checksums	Dropbox content hash
Modification times	Kept, to 1 s
Case-insensitive names	Yes
Duplicate names allowed	No
Server-side copy	Yes
Server-side move and rename	Yes
Folder move and rename	Yes, in one step
Free space reporting	Yes
Empty folders	Yes
Change notifications	Yes
Uploads of unknown size	Yes
Public links	Yes

From rclone’s documentation

The rest of this page is adapted from rclone’s documentation for this backend (rclone v1.75.2, MIT licence). It is written for rclone’s command line: where it mentions a flag such as --dropbox-example, set the option example in the wizard’s options instead. Commands such as rclone copy aren’t part of CloudMount.

remote:directory/subdirectory.

Setup notes

In CloudMount you add this drive from the Add drive screen, and the wizard asks for the options listed under Options. The notes below come from rclone’s setup guide.

Dropbox for business

Rclone supports Dropbox for business and Team Folders.

When using Dropbox for business remote: and remote:path/to/file will refer to your personal folder.

If you wish to see Team Folders you must use a leading / in the path, so rclone lsd remote:/ will refer to the root and show you all Team Folders and your User Folder.

You can then use team folders like this remote:/TeamFolder and remote:/TeamFolder/path/to/file.

A leading / for a Dropbox personal account will do nothing, but it will take an extra HTTP transaction so it should be avoided.

Modification times and hashes

Dropbox supports modified times, but the only way to set a modification time is to re-upload the file.

This means that if you uploaded your data with an older version of rclone which didn’t support the v2 API and modified times, rclone will decide to upload all your old data to fix the modification times. If you don’t want this to happen use --size-only or --checksum flag to stop it.

Dropbox supports its own hash type which is checked for all transfers.

Restricted filename characters

Character	Value	Replacement
NUL	0x00	␀
/	0x2F	／
DEL	0x7F	␡
\	0x5C	＼

File names can also not end with the following characters. These only get replaced if they are the last character in the name:

Character	Value	Replacement
SP	0x20	␠

Invalid UTF-8 bytes will also be replaced, as they can’t be used in JSON strings.

Batch mode uploads

Using batch mode uploads is very important for performance when using the Dropbox API. See the dropbox performance guide for more info.

There are 3 modes rclone can use for uploads.

--dropbox-batch-mode off

In this mode rclone will not use upload batching. This was the default before rclone v1.55. It has the disadvantage that it is very likely to encounter too_many_requests errors like this

NOTICE: too_many_requests/.: Too many requests or write operations. Trying again in 15 seconds.

When rclone receives these it has to wait for 15s or sometimes 300s before continuing which really slows down transfers.

This will happen especially if --transfers is large, so this mode isn’t recommended except for compatibility or investigating problems.

--dropbox-batch-mode sync

In this mode rclone will batch up uploads to the size specified by --dropbox-batch-size and commit them together.

Using this mode means you can use a much higher --transfers parameter (32 or 64 works fine) without receiving too_many_requests errors.

This mode ensures full data integrity.

Note that there may be a pause when quitting rclone while rclone finishes up the last batch using this mode.

--dropbox-batch-mode async

In this mode rclone will batch up uploads to the size specified by --dropbox-batch-size and commit them together.

However it will not wait for the status of the batch to be returned to the caller. This means rclone can use a much bigger batch size (much bigger than --transfers), at the cost of not being able to check the status of the upload.

This provides the maximum possible upload speed especially with lots of small files, however rclone can’t check the file got uploaded properly using this mode.

If you are using this mode then using “rclone check” after the transfer completes is recommended. Or you could do an initial transfer with --dropbox-batch-mode async then do a final transfer with --dropbox-batch-mode sync (the default).

Note that there may be a pause when quitting rclone while rclone finishes up the last batch using this mode.

Exporting files

Certain files in Dropbox are “exportable”, such as Dropbox Paper documents. These files need to be converted to another format in order to be downloaded. Often multiple formats are available for conversion.

When rclone downloads a exportable file, it chooses the format to download based on the --dropbox-export-formats setting. By default, the export formats are html,md, which are sensible defaults for Dropbox Paper.

Rclone chooses the first format ID in the export formats list that Dropbox supports for a given file. If no format in the list is usable, rclone will choose the default format that Dropbox suggests.

Rclone will change the extension to correspond to the export format. Here are some examples of how extensions are mapped:

File type	Filename in Dropbox	Filename in rclone
Paper	mydoc.paper	mydoc.html
Paper template	mydoc.papert	mydoc.papert.html
other	mydoc	mydoc.html

Importing exportable files is not yet supported by rclone.

Here are the supported export extensions known by rclone. Note that rclone does not currently support other formats not on this list, even if Dropbox supports them. Also, Dropbox could change the list of supported formats at any time.

Format ID	Name	Description
html	HTML	HTML document
md	Markdown	Markdown text format

Options

Standard options

The wizard asks for these when you add the drive.

client_id

OAuth Client Id.

Leave blank normally.

Type: string

client_secret

OAuth Client Secret.

Leave blank normally.

Type: string

Advanced options

The wizard shows these under Advanced options. Most drives work without changing any of them.

token

OAuth Access Token as a JSON blob.

Type: string

auth_url

Auth server URL.

Leave blank to use the provider defaults.

Type: string

token_url

Token server url.

Leave blank to use the provider defaults.

Type: string

client_credentials

Use client credentials OAuth flow.

This will use the OAUTH2 client Credentials Flow as described in RFC 6749.

Note that this option is NOT supported by all backends.

Type: bool · Default: false

chunk_size

Upload chunk size (< 150Mi).

Any files larger than this will be uploaded in chunks of this size.

Note that chunks are buffered in memory (one at a time) so rclone can deal with retries. Setting this larger will increase the speed slightly (at most 10% for 128 MiB in tests) at the cost of using more memory. It can be set smaller if you are tight on memory.

Type: SizeSuffix · Default: 48Mi

impersonate

Impersonate this user when using a business account.

Note that if you want to use impersonate, you should make sure this flag is set when running “rclone config” as this will cause rclone to request the “members.read” scope which it won’t normally. This is needed to lookup a members email address into the internal ID that dropbox uses in the API.

Using the “members.read” scope will require a Dropbox Team Admin to approve during the OAuth flow.

You will have to use your own App (setting your own client_id and client_secret) to use this option as currently rclone’s default set of permissions doesn’t include “members.read”. This can be added once v1.55 or later is in use everywhere.

Type: string

impersonate_admin

Team admin ID to use when performing actions as a team administrator.

This sets the Dropbox-API-Select-Admin header with the given team member ID (for example “dbmid:…”).

This takes a team member ID directly rather than an email address.

Note that if you want to use impersonate_admin, you should make sure this flag is set when running “rclone config” as this will cause rclone to request the “team_data.member” scope which it won’t normally.

Using the “team_data.member” scope will require a Dropbox Team Admin to approve during the OAuth flow.

You will have to use your own App (setting your own client_id and client_secret) to use this option as currently rclone’s default set of permissions doesn’t include “team_data.member”.

Type: string

shared_files

Instructs rclone to work on individual shared files.

In this mode rclone’s features are extremely limited - only list (ls, lsl, etc.) operations and read operations (e.g. downloading) are supported in this mode. All other operations will be disabled.

Type: bool · Default: false

shared_folders

Instructs rclone to work on shared folders.

When this flag is used with no path only the List operation is supported and all available shared folders will be listed. If you specify a path the first part will be interpreted as the name of shared folder. Rclone will then try to mount this shared to the root namespace. On success shared folder rclone proceeds normally. The shared folder is now pretty much a normal folder and all normal operations are supported.

Note that we don’t unmount the shared folder afterwards so the –dropbox-shared-folders can be omitted after the first use of a particular shared folder.

See also –dropbox-root-namespace for an alternative way to work with shared folders.

Type: bool · Default: false

skip_shared_folders

Instructs rclone to skip all shared folders.

When set, any folder that is a shared folder mount point will be excluded from directory listings, regardless of ownership. This is useful if you prefer to back up shared folders separately using a separate remote configured with the shared folder namespace.

Type: bool · Default: false

skip_unowned_folders

Instructs rclone to skip shared folders not owned by the current user.

When set, any folder that is a shared folder mount point and not owned by the current user will be excluded from directory listings. This is useful when backing up multiple Dropbox accounts that share common folders, to avoid duplicating the shared data across accounts.

Note: In Dropbox Business, ‘Team Folders’ are owned by the Team. For standard team members, these folders evaluate as ‘unowned’ (editor/viewer access) and will be excluded by this flag. To back up Team Folders, do not use this flag or run the backup using a Team Admin account.

If –dropbox-skip-shared-folders is also enabled, this flag has no effect.

This makes an extra API call per shared folder mount point.

Type: bool · Default: false

pacer_min_sleep

Minimum time to sleep between API calls.

Type: Duration · Default: 10ms

encoding

The encoding for the backend.

See the encoding section in the overview for more info.

Type: Encoding · Default: Slash,BackSlash,Del,RightSpace,InvalidUtf8,Dot

root_namespace

Specify a different Dropbox namespace ID to use as the root for all paths.

Type: string

export_formats

Comma separated list of preferred formats for exporting files

Certain Dropbox files can only be accessed by exporting them to another format. These include Dropbox Paper documents.

For each such file, rclone will choose the first format on this list that Dropbox considers valid. If none is valid, it will choose Dropbox’s default format.

Known formats include: “html”, “md” (markdown)

Type: CommaSepList · Default: html,md

skip_exports

Skip exportable files in all listings.

If given, exportable files practically become invisible to rclone.

Type: bool · Default: false

show_all_exports

Show all exportable files in listings.

Adding this flag will allow all exportable files to be server side copied. Note that rclone doesn’t add extensions to the exportable file names in this mode.

Do not use this flag when trying to download exportable files - rclone will fail to download them.

Type: bool · Default: false

batch_mode

Upload file batching sync|async|off.

This sets the batch mode used by rclone.

For full info see the main docs

This has 3 possible values

• off - no batching
• sync - batch uploads and check completion (default)
• async - batch upload and don’t check completion

Rclone will close any outstanding batches when it exits which may make a delay on quit.

Type: string · Default: sync

batch_size

Max number of files in upload batch.

This sets the batch size of files to upload. It has to be less than 1000.

By default this is 0 which means rclone will calculate the batch size depending on the setting of batch_mode.

• batch_mode: async - default batch_size is 100
• batch_mode: sync - default batch_size is the same as –transfers
• batch_mode: off - not in use

Rclone will close any outstanding batches when it exits which may make a delay on quit.

Setting this is a great idea if you are uploading lots of small files as it will make them a lot quicker. You can use –transfers 32 to maximise throughput.

Type: int · Default: 0

batch_timeout

Max time to allow an idle upload batch before uploading.

If an upload batch is idle for more than this long then it will be uploaded.

The default for this is 0 which means rclone will choose a sensible default based on the batch_mode in use.

• batch_mode: async - default batch_timeout is 10s
• batch_mode: sync - default batch_timeout is 500ms
• batch_mode: off - not in use

Type: Duration · Default: 0s

description

Description of the remote.

Type: string

Limitations

Note that Dropbox is case insensitive so you can’t have a file called “Hello.doc” and one called “hello.doc”.

There are some file names such as thumbs.db which Dropbox can’t store. There is a full list of them in the “Ignored Files” section of this document. Rclone will issue an error message File name disallowed - not uploading if it attempts to upload one of those file names, but the sync won’t fail.

Some errors may occur if you try to sync copyright-protected files because Dropbox has its own copyright detector that prevents this sort of file being downloaded. This will return the error ERROR : /path/to/your/file: Failed to copy: failed to open source object: path/restricted_content/.

If you have more than 10,000 files in a directory then rclone purge dropbox:dir will return the error Failed to purge: There are too many files involved in this operation. As a work-around do an rclone delete dropbox:dir followed by an rclone rmdir dropbox:dir.

When using rclone link you’ll need to set --expire if using a non-personal account otherwise the visibility may not be correct. (Note that --expire isn’t supported on personal accounts). See the forum discussion and the dropbox SDK issue.

Modification times for Dropbox Paper documents are not exact, and may not change for some period after the document is edited. To make sure you get recent changes in a sync, either wait an hour or so, or use --ignore-times to force a full sync.

Get your own Dropbox App ID

When you use rclone with Dropbox in its default configuration you are using rclone’s App ID. This is shared between all the rclone users.

Here is how to create your own Dropbox App ID for rclone:

1. Log into the Dropbox App console with your Dropbox Account (It need not to be the same account as the Dropbox you want to access)

2. Choose an API => Usually this should be Dropbox API

3. Choose the type of access you want to use => Full Dropbox or App Folder. If you want to use Team Folders, Full Dropbox is required (see here).

4. Name your App. The app name is global, so you can’t use rclone for example

5. Click the button Create App

6. Switch to the Permissions tab. Enable at least the following permissions: account_info.read, files.metadata.write, files.content.write, files.content.read, sharing.write. The files.metadata.read and sharing.read checkboxes will be marked too. Click Submit

7. Switch to the Settings tab. Fill OAuth2 - Redirect URIs as http://localhost:53682/ and click on Add

8. Find the App key and App secret values on the Settings tab. Use these values in rclone config to add a new remote or edit an existing remote. The App key setting corresponds to client_id in rclone config, the App secret corresponds to client_secret