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Forum Discussion
Access without an "app"
Hey, I was wondering if it is possible to access a dropbox account without the token generated in the app console. What I mean is, can I use an api on my python script that will query an input drop...
Yes, that's correct.
Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staffmbm123 Performing Dropbox API calls, such as to list and download files from a Dropbox account, does require an access token; they can't be performed using the account username and password directly.
- Greg-DB
mbm123 Third party apps enable end-users to connect their Dropbox accounts by implementing the OAuth app authorization flow. This is a way for third party apps to ask the user to allow the app to access the user's account. When the user approves an app using this flow, the app is given an access token. You can find more information on how this flow works in the OAuth Guide and authorization documentation.
Thank you for the answer, but let me stress this matter just a bit more 😉
Can I do that within a hosting server?
Webpage that wraps dropbox upload download.
Nothing malicious, just for home use.
- Greg-DB
mbm123 It's not possible to perform the entire OAuth app authorization flow within your own app only. The user needs to be sent to Dropbox to indicate to Dropbox whether or not they want to authorize the app. If they do approve it, Dropbox itself then generates the token(s).
Note though that you only need to do this once per user. The app can store and re-use the resulting access/refresh tokens without further manual interaction.
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