Dropbox Uploader

Dropbox Uploader is a BASH script which can be used to upload, download, delete, list files (and more!) from Dropbox, an online file sharing, synchronization and backup service.

It's written in BASH scripting language and only needs cURL.

Why use this script?

Portable: It's written in BASH scripting and only needs cURL (curl is a tool to transfer data from or to a server, available for all operating systems and installed by default in many linux distributions).
Secure: It's not required to provide your username/password to this script, because it uses the official Dropbox API for the authentication process.

Features

Cross platform
Support for the official Dropbox API
No password required or stored
Simple step-by-step configuration wizard
Simple and chunked file upload
File and recursive directory download
File and recursive directory upload
Shell wildcard expansion (only for upload)
Delete/Move/Rename/Copy/List files
Create share link

Getting started

First, clone the repository using git (recommended):

git clone https://github.com/RomanBogachev/Dropbox-Uploader/

or download the script manually using this command:

curl "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RomanBogachev/Dropbox-Uploader/master/dropbox_uploader.sh" -o dropbox_uploader.sh

Then give the execution permission to the script and run it:

 $chmod +x dropbox_uploader.sh
 $./dropbox_uploader.sh

The first time you run dropbox_uploader, you'll be guided through a wizard in order to configure access to your Dropbox. This configuration will be stored in ~/.dropbox_uploader.

Configuration wizard

The configuration wizard is pretty self-explanatory. One thing to notice is that if you choose "App permission", your uploads will end up on Dropbox under an App/<your_app_name> folder. To have them stored in another folder, such as in /dir/, you'll need to give Dropbox-Uploader permission to all Dropbox files.

Usage

The syntax is quite simple:

./dropbox_uploader.sh COMMAND [PARAMETERS]...

[%%]: Optional param
<%%>: Required param

Available commands:

upload <LOCAL_FILE/DIR ...> <REMOTE_FILE/DIR>
Upload a local file or directory to a remote Dropbox folder.
If the file is bigger than 150Mb the file is uploaded using small chunks (default 4Mb); in this case a . (dot) is printed for every chunk successfully uploaded and a * (star) if an error occurs (the upload is retried for a maximum of three times). Only if the file is smaller than 150Mb, the standard upload API is used, and if the -p option is used the default curl progress bar is displayed during the upload process.
The local file/dir parameter supports wildcards expansion.
download <REMOTE_FILE/DIR> [LOCAL_FILE/DIR]
Download file or directory from Dropbox to a local folder
delete <REMOTE_FILE/DIR>
Remove a remote file or directory from Dropbox
move <REMOTE_FILE/DIR> <REMOTE_FILE/DIR>
Move or rename a remote file or directory
copy <REMOTE_FILE/DIR> <REMOTE_FILE/DIR>
Copy a remote file or directory
mkdir <REMOTE_DIR>
Create a remote directory on DropBox
list [REMOTE_DIR]
List the contents of the remote Dropbox folder
share <REMOTE_FILE>
Get a public share link for the specified file or directory
info
Print some info about your Dropbox account
unlink
Unlink the script from your Dropbox account

Optional parameters:

-f <FILENAME>
Load the configuration file from a specific file
-s
Skip already existing files when download/upload. Default: Overwrite
-d
Enable DEBUG mode
-q
Quiet mode. Don't show progress meter or messages
-p
Show cURL progress meter
-k
Doesn't check for SSL certificates (insecure)

Examples:

    ./dropbox_uploader.sh upload /etc/passwd /myfiles/passwd.old
    ./dropbox_uploader.sh upload *.zip /
    ./dropbox_uploader.sh download /backup.zip
    ./dropbox_uploader.sh delete /backup.zip
    ./dropbox_uploader.sh mkdir /myDir/
    ./dropbox_uploader.sh upload "My File.txt" "My File 2.txt"
    ./dropbox_uploader.sh share "My File.txt"
    ./dropbox_uploader.sh list

Tested Environments

GNU Linux
FreeBSD 8.3/10.0
MacOSX
Windows/Cygwin
Raspberry Pi
QNAP
iOS
OpenWRT
Chrome OS
OpenBSD

If you have successfully tested this script on others systems or platforms please let me know!

Running as cron job

Dropbox Uploader relies on a different configuration file for each system user. The default configuration file location is HOME_DIRECTORY/.dropbox_uploader. This means that if you do the setup with your user and then you try to run a cron job as root, it won't works.
So, when running this script using cron, please keep in mind the following:

Remember to setup the script with the user used to run the cron job
Use always the -f option to specify the full configuration file path, because sometimes in the cron environment the home folder path is not detected correctly
My advice is, for security reasons, to not share the same configuration file with different users

How to setup a proxy

To use a proxy server, just set the https_proxy environment variable:

Linux:

    export HTTP_PROXY_USER=XXXX
    export HTTP_PROXY_PASSWORD=YYYY
    export https_proxy=http://192.168.0.1:8080

BSD:

    setenv HTTP_PROXY_USER XXXX
    setenv HTTP_PROXY_PASSWORD YYYY
    setenv https_proxy http://192.168.0.1:8080

BASH and Curl installation

Debian & Ubuntu Linux:

    sudo apt-get install bash (Probably BASH is already installed on your system)
    sudo apt-get install curl

BSD:

    cd /usr/ports/shells/bash && make install clean
    cd /usr/ports/ftp/curl && make install clean

Cygwin:
You need to install these packages:

curl
ca-certificates
dos2unix

Before running the script, you need to convert it using the dos2unix command.

Build cURL from source:

Download the source tarball from http://curl.haxx.se/download.html
Follow the INSTALL instructions

DropShell

DropShell is an interactive DropBox shell, based on DropBox Uploader:

DropShell v0.2
The Intractive Dropbox SHELL

Type help for the list of the available commands.

root@Dropbox:/$ ls
 [D] 0       Apps
 [D] 0       Camera Uploads
 [D] 0       Public
 [D] 0       scripts
 [D] 0       Security
 [F] 105843  notes.txt
root@DropBox:/backup$ get notes.txt