Path of the dropbox folder

Questions & Suggestions
1

Is there anyway I can get the path of the dropbox folder?

2

Typically here, I would imagine:

(function () {
    var a = Application.currentApplication(),
        sa = (a.includeStandardAdditions = true, a);

    return sa.pathTo('home folder') + '/Dropbox/';
})();

but perhaps it's more variable than that …

3

Generally you can just use ~ as your home folder, so a path like:

~/Dropbox

If you want the full path, you can just use echo in the Execute Script action:

echo ~/Dropbox

However if you want to find a non-stanard Dropbox location, then you will have to query Dropbox somehow. Actually, a cheat alternative would be to include a dummy uniquely named file in your Dropbox account, and then use mdfind to find it and thus deduce the location of your Dropbox folder.

4

Currently there is no API to query the Dropbox app (unless something has snuck up on me while I wasn’t looking).

There is an official command-line tool for Dropbox, but as far as I know it is entirely incompatible with the OSX version of Dropbox.

So Peter’s idea of using mdfind is probably the quickest and easiest method:

Put an aptly named file in your Dropbox folder, and run this from an Execute a Shell Script action:

dirname $(mdfind 'kMDItemDisplayName == "myDropboxLocator.txt"')

This takes about 0.05 seconds to return a result on my system.

VoilĂ !

On my system I have Dropbox in the default location, so this works for me in an Execute an AppleScript action:

set myDropboxPath to POSIX path of ((path to home folder as text) & "Dropbox:")

Peter has mentioned ~/Dropbox
You can put that in a variable and then use the Filter-Variable action to Expand Tilde in Path

Or combining a couple of things we can do this:

DROPBOX=~/Dropbox/;
if [ -d "$DROPBOX" ]; then
   echo "$DROPBOX"
else
   dirname $(mdfind 'kMDItemDisplayName == "myDropboxLocator.txt"')
fi

If the Dropbox folder exists in the default location this is sub 0.001 seconds, and if DB is NOT in the default location it falls back to using mdfind.

-Chris

1 Like
5

Chris’s idea seems good, and you might be able to use variants of it which (in some circumstances) might reuse the $DROPBOX variable, and perhaps look for a ‘myDropBox’ user tag as an alternative to a special file, or even just assume that the first folder matching “Dropbox” is likely to be the one you are after ?

#!/bin/bash

if [[ -z "$DROPBOX" ]]; then
    DROPBOX=~/Dropbox/
fi

if [ ! -d "$DROPBOX" ]; then
	DROPBOX=$(mdfind 'kMDItemDisplayName == "Dropbox" && kMDItemContentType == public.folder' | head -n 1)
	
	# or perhaps using a tag ?
	# DROPBOX=$(mdfind 'kMDItemUserTags == myDropBox && kMDItemContentType == public.folder'  | head -n 1)
fi

echo "$DROPBOX"
6

Thank you for all these suggestions. My dropbox is not in the default location so I’ll try one of your suggestions.

7

The path is located in

~/.dropbox/info.json

Got this from https://www.dropbox.com/help/4584

So one solution might look like this, use “Execute a Shell Script” and save it to a variable:

cat ~/.dropbox/info.json | awk '{print $3}' | sed 's/[",]//g'

This read the file, get the third column and then remove the two characters " and ,

/Simon

3 Likes
8

That’s awesome simgag! Nice to know that and thanks for the script.

9

And another approach, using simgag's research, and reading the JSON directly with an Execute JavaScript action:

Dropbox path 2.kmmacros (19.3 KB)

(function () {
  return JSON.parse(
    $.NSString.stringWithContentsOfFile(
      $("~/.dropbox/info.json").stringByExpandingTildeInPath
    ).js
  ).personal.path;
})();
3 Likes
10

I liked that. nice!

1 Like
11

Well done Simon!  :smile:

-Chris

1 Like