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Forum Discussion
Is there a way to set the Dropbox folder via the command line?
Hi Dropbox
HUGELY EXASPERATING -- NO WAY TO MOVE / SET THE DROPBOX ON-PC FILE LOCN ON COMMAND LINE INSTALLS
#Dropbox - presuming you are here, WHY am I having to ask the Community to help with such an OBVIOUS NEED ??????????
#### YOU SHOULD FIX THIS, DROPBOX -- IT'S BEEN OVERLOOKED FOR YEARS. SORT IT OUT PLEASE - TODAY WOULD BE GOOD.
This will take a decent programmer in your offices *20mins tops to document*.
PROBLEM: THE HEADLESS DROPBOX - IDEAL FOR MANY LINUXES ****HAS NO WAY TO RELOCATE THE STORAGE FOLDER*****
On Win / Mac / Ubuntu there's a GUI - but for the hundreds of other Linux situations, and most servers, WE USE COMMAND LINE
-- but you FORCE US to put the synch folder in the most obviously idiotic place - under home. And moving it is then IMPOSSIBLE it seems.
"Jane" replied with this helpful news three years ago on this thread: [ https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Apps-and-Installations/Unable-to-access-preference-menu-on-linux/td-p/232112/page/3 ] .
## SO DROPBOX -- what are the millions of us out here supposed to do ????? Can you FIX this IDIOTIC OMISSION please. I only ask because I have work associates who want Dropbox. (Cloud on Linux is massively simpler with Google Drive. Just works).
Looking forward in anticipation to your detailed help. No sarcasm intended.
(Apologies to all the good people in Community but there seems no way to actually reach a Dropbox person).
Thanks
MikeHLondon
[ PS that detail advice from 2013 - it doesn't work. MHL ]
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi MikeHLondon, thanks for messaging the Community.
Are you referring to the Linux version of the Dropbox desktop application, or also for Mac and Windows OS versions?
This will help me to assist further.
- Neither.
I referenced the COMMAND LINE version as you saw there - the headless version which you provide here:
https://www.dropbox.com/en_GB/install-linux
Scroll down past the named distros and you get to the headless install notes:
==========
" *Dropbox Headless install via command line* "
The Dropbox daemon works fine on all 32-bit and 64-bit Linux servers. To install it, run the following command in your Linux terminal.
32-bit:
cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86" | tar xzf -
64-bit:
cd ~ && wget -O - "https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64" | tar xzf -
Next, run the Dropbox daemon from the newly created .dropbox-dist folder.
~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
If you’re running Dropbox on your server for the first time, you’ll be asked to copy and paste a link in a working browser to create a new account or add your server to an existing account. Once you’ve done this, your Dropbox folder will be created in your home directory. Download this Python script to control Dropbox from the command line. For easy access, put a symlink to the script anywhere in your PATH.
======
---to be clear this works fine on distros I've tried it on -- but *doesn't ask or offer any way to set the storage location* so saves direct to /home/username which is the last thing we want.
SEEMS you use some sort 'system tray' component on desktops to change this, but then in a headless there is no such of course.
Surely whatever that component does, can also exist as a bash script?
Back in 2013 it looks like it once did - I've seen a help page from then that offered it -- but that's all obsolete now.
SURELY it any professional application you WANT it running on a headless machine mostly (to then share locally in a workplace over LAN) so I would have thought this massively in demand.
GDrive does all this seamlessly -- please sort out your version, the headless headless instance works fine we just need to be able to relocate it. Surely just a local database entry ?
Thank you
Mike- Hannah
Thanks for this info, MikeHLondon.
We appreciate your feedback here and I will make sure it's passed along to our team.
Let us know if you need anything else.
Happy holidays!
