Using Robocopy with the Dropbox folder as the root of the destination path

[EWE]

I have read that the Dropbox folder on a Windows computer works like any other Windows file system folder as regards to dragging/dropping, copying with File Explorer, etc.  However when I attempt to use the Dropbox folder as the root of a destination path in a Robocopy operation, Robocopy always returns "Invalid Parameter #2 : " (which is the path starting with the Dropbox folder).  I have checked and verified the validity of the path. 

Can the Dropbox folder not be used as a Robocopy destination folder? 

Does the Dropbox folder really live on the Dropbox server and the folder we see in Explorer is just a link of some type that Robocopy doesn't recognize as a valid file system folder?

[Здравко]

Hi @EWE,

First of all your question has nothing to do with Dropbox API. You're discussing Dropbox application' features.

In general Dropbox folder is a folder like any other folder and like any other folder may have additional (rarely used otherwise) features. In particular Dropbox folder on Windows usually use so called smart sync; for affected files this means empty files. In any way the files/folders path is not affected, so error message from another application about path validity... ask the corresponding application support or read the documentation more carefully. If I have to bet, you have mistake in typing your command. Check twice! 😉

Good luck.

[EWE · Accepted solution]

The command syntax was correct, however, I had wrapped the source and destination paths with quotes because they contain spaces and the source path was an environment variable ended so it ended with the backslash, which caused the command interpreter to escape the quote following that backslash which made robocopy treat the destination path as invalid.