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Does dropbox have a way of notifying when a file changes i.e arrival of new uploads or a file has changed.

Gandalf
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9 Answers9

31

Though you will still have to poll, there's a relatively new API endpoint called /delta that will let you poll much more efficiently than the /metadata endpoint.

It's better than using the RSS feed.

Kannan Goundan
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25

As Kannan points out, there's a new API endpoint called /delta that's better than polling or RSS.

This can also be used in conjunction with the /longpoll_delta API endpoint :

A long-poll endpoint to wait for changes on an account. In conjunction 
with /delta, this call gives you a low-latency way to monitor an account 
for file changes.
surui
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Waynn Lue
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    I just discovered another way;via rss.At the bottom of the vent list,there is a link to grab the rss feeds for instant notifications.For more on that http://www.technospot.net/blogs/get-instant-notifcation-of-dropbox-file-changes/ – Gandalf Mar 09 '12 at 13:34
  • You could then use the RSS feed via something like ifttt.com to send you an email, push notification, tweet etc etc. depending on how urgently you wanted to know! –  Jun 27 '12 at 08:29
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    RSS scraping is no longer the best way, see the answers about the /delta endpoint. – RichVel Aug 20 '12 at 10:33
  • don't use RSS... that's what the delta is for – Yuki Jun 09 '13 at 11:19
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    "You can periodically call /delta to get a list of delta entries". How is that not still polling? Does anyone know if there is an event-based delta API (so I don't have to poll)? – Homer6 Sep 29 '13 at 17:21
6

This delta API can be called to get sync

http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=53533

Zaheer
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6

Dropbox recently announced WebHooks!

If you're interested in helping us out, just click through to fill out your information, and we'll be in touch:

Happy Dropboxing!

QFDev
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6

Dropbox now officially offers Webhooks https://www.dropbox.com/developers/blog/90/announcing-dropbox-webhooks

Dan
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2

Though Dropbox's delta API is used to get a list of all the modified file details, a webhook is what one needs to get notified about a change (change being modification, addition or deletion of a file)

  1. Go to: Dropbox Developer App Console
  2. Click on your App that contains the files whose changes you want to be notified.
  3. Scroll down to "WEBHOOK"
  4. Paste the link that will handle the notifications via POST method.
  5. Click ENABLE.

Moment you click enable, the dropbox sends a request to the link you entered to see if it responds to the GET request or not. You need to make sure that the link does respond to it. If working with Python and Flask frame work, following two lines of code is sufficient:

@app.route('/webhook', methods=['GET'])
def verify():
    '''Respond to the webhook verification (GET request) by echoing back the challenge parameter.'''

    return request.args.get('challenge')

Now you will be notified via POST to the above link every time a change is made to dropbox. Deal with the notifications the way you want to. :)

Avi Dubey
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  • Wrong. Dropbox webhook notifications only notify you of changes in accounts of users who have authorized your API app to connect to their accounts. – Khurshid Alam Jul 30 '16 at 15:59
  • Not true. Did you test my answer by following the steps I suggested or are just saying it won't work because you think so. If former, then let me know, I will test it again and change/remove my answer. – Avi Dubey Aug 29 '16 at 23:44
1

If you have a computer with Dropbox installed that is always on, you can set a script to run whenever Dropbox pops up a change notification. That script could then grab the change log using RSS (or the /delta API) and if the file/directory you're interested has changed, send a notification.

On Mac, Dropbox can send notifications to Growl and you can tell Growl to run your script. On Windows you will need to monitor for Notifications in the system tray using something like gTraySpy. Growl for Windows can do this if you install the Windows Balloons plugin.

As long as you can get a script to run when a change has occurred, it's just a matter of parsing the change log and performing an action when certain item(s) have changed.

sstur
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1

Dropbox has a new long polling endpoint for deltas:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/blog/63/low-latency-notification-of-dropbox-file-changes

mcintyre321
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Dropbox SYNC API is the way to go

DBPath *path = [DBPath root];
[fileSystem addObserver:self forPathAndChildren:path block:^() {
        NSLog(@"something changed in your dropbox folder!");
    }];
user1125968
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