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Forum Discussion
How to open dropbox link from slack to finder?
Our teams use Dropbox and Slack and we daily share internal dropbox project links from our dropbox to Slack.
The question everyone has, how can you easily open a dropbox link from slack to reveal it in finder?
Short answer... no.
And remember that the path to a file on your computer will not be the same as the path to a file on someone else's computer, even if that file is in the same shared folder. By default, each user's Dropbox folder is located within their computer user profile, which often include that person's name or username in the path. That means a link to a file on your computer will not work on anyone else's comptuer. Add to that the fact that people can freely rename shared folders to anything they want without impacting the functionality of the share, and that just complicates it even more.
The only way for a full path to a file on your comptuer to work on other comptuers, is if everyone has Dropbox in the exact same location and haven't renamed the shared folder that the file is located in. If that's the case, you can just copy the path to the file from Explorer/Finder and share is at you like.
- Walter
Dropbox Staff
Hey there Lauri I. - how are you today?
From what I understand you're using Slack to exchange shared links to your Dropbox files and you'd like to open those files (or projects) via your Finder on your Mac device(s) directly - right?
What platform are you currently using to do this? If you're using the web version, does it not give you the option to download or open the shared links in question? This would probably enable you to see it in Finder too.
I'm only guessing here so please let me know more about your current setup, the configuration you use and the steps you take to do this and I will get back to you with more information. Thanks!
Sorry for the vague details. We all use Mac (latest Mojave's).
Yes exactly. When I share a link to a project folder for example to my collagues in slack, when they click and open it will open it in dropbox.com and they can browse and download the files. But rather than downloading something that they already have in their hard-drive (in our team dropbox) they could just sync the file in finder and also start working on other files there too.
Lately people just write the dropbox folder path by hand in slack as they do not know a better way.
I think there used to be a link "reveal in finder" or something in the web-version, but I cannot see it anymore or I'm mistaking it to some other service that had something similar.
- Walter
I think you're referring to the option for opening in Dropbox (the desktop app on your computers) - this would be "Show in Finder" and would appear only if those files are synced to the members' computer(s) too.
As you might know, with Dropbox, you can create a sharable link to any file or folder in your Dropbox folder and anyone with the link can view the contents, but can’t edit them (they'd need to be a part of the shared folder in question to do this).
Is it possible that you're referring to shared folders they've added to their account as well (as this the way for others to have edit rights to the said folder to begin with)?
If that is the case, the focus is on our desktop app. When you access/open files from our website, our desktop app communicates with our site, in order to provide the available options for opening those files. So the first thing to check is that our desktop app is running when you or a teammate of yours access these links.
Okay, this is a big problem, and I have found a solution!
Firstly, FYI, this is a feature released in 2015, article is here:
https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/product/new-way-to-open-dropbox-files
Basically the workflow is this:
1. Click on the Dropbox URL
2. Roll over the file/folder you want to get to on Dropbox.com
3. Click on the "Open With" button, and navigate down to and click "Show in Finder"
Well, this is just great! I cannot believe I didn't figure this out sooner. :grinning:
