---
title: "Dropbox"
description: "Rclone docs for Dropbox"
date: "2014-07-17"
---

<i class="fa fa-dropbox"></i> Dropbox
---------------------------------

Paths are specified as `remote:path`

Dropbox paths may be as deep as required, eg
`remote:directory/subdirectory`.

The initial setup for dropbox involves getting a token from Dropbox
which you need to do in your browser.  `rclone config` walks you
through it.

Here is an example of how to make a remote called `remote`.  First run:

     rclone config

This will guide you through an interactive setup process:

```
n) New remote
d) Delete remote
q) Quit config
e/n/d/q> n
name> remote
What type of source is it?
Choose a number from below
 1) swift
 2) s3
 3) local
 4) google cloud storage
 5) dropbox
 6) drive
type> 5
Dropbox App Key - leave blank to use rclone's.
app_key> 
Dropbox App Secret - leave blank to use rclone's.
app_secret> 
Remote config
Please visit:
https://www.dropbox.com/1/oauth2/authorize?client_id=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX&response_type=code
Enter the code: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_XXXXXXXXXX
--------------------
[remote]
app_key = 
app_secret = 
token = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX_XXXX_XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
--------------------
y) Yes this is OK
e) Edit this remote
d) Delete this remote
y/e/d> y
```

You can then use it like this,

List directories in top level of your dropbox

    rclone lsd remote:

List all the files in your dropbox

    rclone ls remote:

To copy a local directory to a dropbox directory called backup

    rclone copy /home/source remote:backup

Modified time
-------------

Md5sums and timestamps in RFC3339 format accurate to 1ns are stored in
a Dropbox datastore called "rclone".

Limitations
-----------

Dropbox datastores are limited to 100,000 rows so this is the maximum
number of files rclone can manage on Dropbox.

Dropbox is case sensitive which can sometimes cause duplicated files.

If you use the desktop sync tool and rclone on the same files then the
md5sums and modification times may get out of sync as far as rclone is
concerned.  This will cause `Corrupted on transfer: md5sums differ`
error message when fetching files.  You can work around this by using
the `--size-only` flag to ignore the md5sums and modification times
for these files.