DBXCLI - Dropbox Command Line Tool

A command line tool for Dropbox users and team admins

DBXCLI is a command line client for Dropbox built using the Go SDK. With it you can upload files, download files, automate Dropbox backups, and much more!

Features

  • Supports basic file operations like ls, cp, mkdir, mv (via the Files API)
  • Supports search
  • Supports file revisions and file restore
  • Chunked uploads for large files, paginated listing for large directories
  • Supports a growing set of Team operations

Installation

Download pre-compiled binaries for Mac, Windows and Linux from the releases page: https://github.com/dropbox/dbxcli/releases.

DBXCLI is portable, which means that to install all you have to do is download and execute. But it is preferable to have the binary on your path this way you can call it from any directory.

For the Mac the instructions to do just that are below.

  1. Make sure you download and place the binary in a folder that's on your $PATH. If you have such directory reserved for such purpose skip to step 3.

  2. Create a bin directory under your home directory.

mkdir ~/bin
cd ~/bin

Add the following line at the end of your ~/.bash_profile file.

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
  1. Download the dbxcli binary for OSX and rename it.
wget https://github.com/dropbox/dbxcli/releases/download/v2.1.1/dbxcli-darwin-amd64 
mv dbxcli-darwin-amd64 dbxcli
  1. Finally, make the binary an executable file and you are good to go!
chmod +x dbxcli

That's it! DBXCLI should be now ready to get to work.

Usage

dbxcli is largely self documenting. Run dbxcli -h for a list of supported commands:

  dbxcli --help

  Use dbxcli to quickly interact with your Dropbox, upload/download files,
  manage your team and more. It is easy, scriptable and works on all platforms!

  Usage:
      dbxcli [command]

  Available Commands:
    cp          Copy files
    du          Display usage information
    get         Download a file
    ls          List files
    mkdir       Create a new directory
    mv          Move files
    put         Upload files
    restore     Restore files
    revs        List file revisions
    rm          Remove files
    search      Search
    team        Team management commands
    version     Print version information

  Flags:
    --as-member string   Member ID to perform action as
    -v, --verbose            Enable verbose logging

  Use "dbxcli [command] --help" for more information about a command.

  $ dbxcli team --help
  Team management commands

  Usage:
    dbxcli team [command]

  Available Commands:
    add-member    Add a new member to a team
    info          Get team information
    list-groups   List groups
    list-members  List team members
    remove-member Remove member from a team

  Global Flags:
    --as-member string   Member ID to perform action as
    -v, --verbose            Enable verbose logging

  Use "dbxcli team [command] --help" for more information about a command.

The --verbose option will turn on verbose logging and is useful for debugging.

Quick Start

First we have to add an account to dbxcli. To do that execute:

dbxcli account

The program will output a link, just copy and paste that link into your browser's address bar. DBXCLI works with Dropbox API so you need to authorize it to work in your Dropbox folder. After logging into Dropbox click the Allow buttom.

Once you click in the Allow button Dropbox's site will display a key of alpha-numeric characters. Copy it and paste into the terminal:

 mteam7 [~] $ dbxcli account
1. Go to https://www.dropbox.com/1/oauth2/authorize?client_id=06a7d1f28621cj8q769&response_type=code&state=state
2. Click "Allow" (you might have to log in first).
3. Copy the authorization code.
Enter the authorization code here: XXXXXXXX_HERE_GOES_YOUR_KEY_XXXXXXXX

After that you are ready to use it.

For instance to copy the local file ~/Document.docx to a folder called Docs inside your Dropbox do:

dbxcli put ~/Document.docx /Docs/Document.docx

To download files use get. Like this:

dbxcli get /Excel/Sheet.xlsx ~/MyLocalDir/Sheet.xlsx

Automation

In order to automate these tasks you need to use some sort of task scheduler program. Fortunately all major OSs comes with one already.

For Macs and Linuxes use the cron. For Windows, you can use Task Scheduler.

Also note that for regular Dropbox account you can have up to 30 days of file revisions. Which means with you overwrite the same backup file over and over you can get the last 30 days revisions for that file. This period is extended Dropbox Business.

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