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Forum Discussion
How can I automate retrieval of a refresh token using the Python API?
I have a Python app that is intended to run as a scheduled job to save files to Dropbox at regular intervals. When I have a refresh token, this works fine: dbx = dropbox.Dropbox(app_key='xxx', ap...
Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox Staff[Cross-linking for reference: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/71955472/how-do-i-automate-retrieval-of-a-refresh-token-using-the-dropbox-python-3-x-api ]
Dropbox API refresh tokens do not expire after four hours. They can be revoked on demand, but they do not expire automatically, and can be stored and re-used repeatedly. (The short-lived access tokens themselves do expire, but the refresh token can be used to get new short-lived access tokens whenever needed. The official Dropbox SDKs will do that process for you automatically.)
So, while you do need to manually process the app authorization flow once to get a refresh token, once you have it, you can store and re-use it for long-term access without further manual interaction.
Thank you for your response. I think my confusion came from the JSON that had an expiry field on it:
{
"access_token": "www",
"token_type": "bearer",
"expires_in": 14400,
"refresh_token": "xxx",
"scope": "account_info.read files.content.write files.metadata.read files.metadata.write",
"uid": "yyy",
"account_id": "zzz"
}
- Greg-DB
I see, thanks for the context. That expiration only applies to the access token. You can find more information on each field in the documentation here.
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