Ingest your files into Unstructured from Dropbox.

The requirements are as follows.

  1. A Dropbox account.

  2. A Dropbox app for your Dropbox account. To create a Dropbox app, do the following:

    a) Sign in to the Dropbox Developers portal with the same credentials as your Dropbox account.
    b) Open your App Console.
    c) Click Create app.
    d) For Choose an API, select Scoped access.
    e) For Choose the type of access you need, select App folder.
    f) Enter a name for your app, and then click Create app.
    g) On the app’s Permissions tab, under Files and folders, check the boxes labelled files.content.read or files.content.write or both, depending on whether you want to read files, write files, or both. Then click Submit.
    h) On the app’s Settings tab, note the value of the App folder name field. This is the name of the app folder that Dropbox will create under the Apps top-level folder in your Dropbox account that the Dropbox app will use for access. If you change the value of App folder name field here, Dropbox will create an app folder with that name under the Apps top-level folder instead.
    i) Under OAuth 2, next to Generated access token, click Generate. Copy the value of this access token. You should only click Generate after you have completed all of the preceding steps first. This is because the access token is scoped to the specific app folder and settings at the time the access token is generated. If you change the app folder name or any of the permissions later, you should regenerate the access token.

    Access tokens are valid for only four hours after they are created. After this four-hour period, you can no longer use the expired access token. Dropbox does not allow the creation of access tokens that are valid for more than four hours.

    To generate a replacement token for an expired one, see Replace an expired access token, later in this article.

  3. The app folder that your Dropbox app will use for access can be found in your Dropbox account under the Apps top-level folder. For example, if the value of the App folder name field above is my-folder, then the app folder that your Dropbox app will use for access can be found under https://dropbox.com/home/Apps/my-folder

    Your Dropbox app will not have access to upload or download files from the root of the app folder. Instead, you must create a subfolder inside of the app folder for your Dropbox app to upload or download files from. You will use the name of that subfolder when specifying your remote URL in the next step. For example, if your Dropbox app uses an app folder named my-folder for access within the Apps top-level folder, and you create a subfolder named data within the my-folder app folder, then the subfolder that your Dropbox app will upload and download files from can be found under https://dropbox.com/home/Apps/my-folder/data

  4. Note the remote URL to your subfolder inside of the app folder, which takes the format dropbox://<subfolder-name>. For example, if your Dropbox app uses an app folder named my-folder for access within the Apps top-level folder, and you create a subfolder named data within the my-folder app folder, then the remote URL is dropbox://data

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Replace an expired access token

Dropbox app access tokens are valid for only four hours. After this time, you can no longer use the expired access token.

To replace an old, expired access token with a new, valid one, do the following:

  1. Get the app key and app secret values for your Dropbox app. To do this:

    a) Sign in to the Dropbox Developers portal with the same credentials as your Dropbox account.
    b) Open your App Console.
    c) Click your Dropbox app’s icon.
    d) On the Settings tab, next to App key, copy the value of the app key.
    e) Next to App secret, click Show, and then copy the value of the app secret.

  2. Use your web browser to browse to the following URL, replacing <app-key> with the app key for your Dropbox app:

    https://www.dropbox.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=<app-key>&response_type=code&token_access_type=offline

  3. Click Continue.

  4. Click Allow.

  5. In the Access code generated tile, copy the access code that is shown.

  6. Use the curl utility in your Terminal or Command Prompt, or use a REST API client such as Postman, to make the following REST API call, replacing the following placeholders:

    • Replace <access-code> with the access code that you just copied.
    • Replace <app-key> with the app key for your Dropbox app.
    • Replace <app-secret> with the app secret for your Dropbox app.
    curl https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token \
--data code=<access-code> \
--data grant_type=authorization_code \
--user <app-key>:<app-secret>

  7. In the response, copy the following two values:

    • The value of access_token (starting with the characters sl) is the new, valid access token. In your Dropbox connector settings, replace the old, expired access token value with this new, valid access token value.
    • The value of refresh_token is the refresh token that you can use to replace this access token much faster and easier next time. If you lose this refresh token, you must go back to Step 2.

  8. To use the refresh token to replace the expired access token, make the following REST API call, replacing the following placeholders:

    • Replace <refresh-token> with the refresh token.
    • Replace <app-key> with the app key for your Dropbox app.
    • Replace <app-secret> with the app secret for your Dropbox app.
    curl https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token \
--data refresh_token=<refresh-token> \
--data grant_type=refresh_token \
--data client_id=<app-key> \
--data client_secret=<app-secret>

  9. In the response, copy the following two values:

    • The value of access_token (starting with the characters sl) is the new, valid access token. In the connector, replace the old, expired access token value with this new, valid access token value.

    • The value of refresh_token is the new, valid refresh token. To replace the expired access token, go back to Step 8.

To create the source connector:

  1. On the sidebar, click Connectors.
  2. Click Sources.
  3. Cick New or Create Connector.
  4. Give the connector some unique Name.
  5. In the Provider area, click Dropbox.
  6. Click Continue.
  7. Follow the on-screen instructions to fill in the fields as described later on this page.
  8. Click Save and Test.

Fill in the following fields:

  • Name (required): A unique name for this connector.
  • Data URL (required): The URL to the target subfolder inside of the app folder for the Dropbox app, starting with dropbox://.
  • Recursive (source connector only): Check this box to also process all child folders and their files within the subfolder.
  • Access token : The access token for the Dropbox app that is associated with the target app folder.

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