Dropbox Core SDK for Java 6+

A Java library to access Dropbox's HTTP-based Core API.

License: MIT

This is for web applications. If you want to use Dropbox's API from Android, try the Sync SDK

Javadoc.

Setup

If you're using Maven, then edit your project's "pom.xml" and add this to the <dependencies> section:

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.dropbox.core</groupId>
    <artifactId>dropbox-core-sdk</artifactId>
    <version>[1.7,1.8)</version>
</dependency>

If you aren't using Maven, here are the JARs you need:

• Dropbox Core SDK
• Jackson Core (JSON parser)

Get a Dropbox API key

You need a Dropbox API key to make API requests.

• Go to: https://www.dropbox.com/developers/apps
• If you've already registered an app, click on the "Options" link to see the app's API key and secret.
• Otherwise, click "Create an app" to register an app. Choose "Full Dropbox" or "App Folder" depending on your needs.

Save the API key to a JSON file called, say, "test.app":

{
  "key": "Your Dropbox API app key",
  "secret": "Your Dropbox API app secret"
}

Using the Dropbox API

Before your app can access a Dropbox user's files, the user must authorize your application using OAuth 2. Successfully completing this authorization flow gives you an access token for the user's Dropbox account, which grants you the ability to make Dropbox API calls to access their files.

• Authorization example for a simple web app: Web File Browser example
• Authorization example for a command-line tool: Command-Line Authorization example

Once you have an access token, create a DbxClient and start making API calls.

You only need to perform the authorization process once per user. Once you have an access token for a user, save it somewhere persistent, like in a database. The next time that user visits your app's, you can skip the authorization process and go straight to creating a DbxClient and making API calls.

Running the examples

Prerequisites: Apache Maven

1. Download this repository.
2. Save your Dropbox API key in a file called "test.app". See: Get a Dropbox API key, above.
3. mvn install
4. mvn -f examples/pom.xml compile

authorize

This examples runs through the OAuth 2 authorization flow.

cd examples
./run authorize test.app test.auth

This produces a file named "test.auth" that has the access token. This file can be passed in to the other examples.

account-info

A trivial example that calls the /account/info API endpoint.

cd examples
./run account-info test.auth

(You must first generate "test.auth" using the "authorize" example above.)

web-file-browser

A tiny web app that runs through the OAuth 2 authorization flow and then uses Dropbox API calls to let the user browse their Dropbox files.

Prerequisite: In the Dropbox API app configuration console, you need to add "http://localhost:5000/dropbox-auth-finish" to the list of allowed redirect URIs.

cd examples
./run web-file-browser 5000 test.app web-file-browser.db