Dropbox API - Sharing folders

Question

Dropbox makes it really easy to share folders and their contents with others and to control their access rights. However, from what I can tell this capability is reduced to a "share link" (which turns out to be a read-only link) if the folder happens to be an "App" folder. However, there appears to be a simple way around this - instead of restricting the API token permission to a single folder you simply set permission type to "Full Dropbox" and bingo - you can share folders.

Whilst the Dropbox API console and web consoles do not appear to complain when I do this I have not then gone one step further and tested that

• The users with whom I share folders in this way do indeed have read write access
• I can track changes to shared folders via the Dropbox API using web hooks

I'd be most obliged to anyone who has been here already who might be able to clarify.

Answer 1

That's correct. Currently, Dropbox app folders are incompatible with (read/write) shared folders, meaning you can't share an app folder, put a shared folder inside an app folder or put an app folder in a shared folder.

Instead, if you need to use the API with shared folders, you'll need to use "full Dropbox" permission, as opposed to the app folder permission. You can find more information about app permissions here:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/reference/devguide

If you've already registered an app using the app folder permission, you can register another with the desired permission at:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/apps/create

Using a full Dropbox app, your app can interact with shared folders just like any other folders.