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Forum Discussion
Using API to get a list of *direct* url's to images in a folder
We're building an app in Python that will need to retrieve a list of every file in a particular folder containing jpg images, and for each image, we need to get a direct http url that can be used in an html img src tag. We also need the original image file name (the name humans see when the view a list of files e.g. image1.jpg)
When testing the api using list_folder, we get back the original file names and other metadata like the file id. But how do we create a url for each file?
It seems like Dropbox is preventing or discouraging this practice perhaps to reduce load on their servers from people hosting images used on high-traffic sites. But we're not doing that.
Thanks
- Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
To get a direct link to a file via the API you can call the /2/files/get_temporary_link endpoint. In the official Dropbox API v2 Python SDK, that's available as files_get_temporary_link.
Note that those links are only valid for four hours. If you need longer-lived links, you can instead use /2/sharing/create_shared_link_with_settings / sharing_create_shared_link_with_settings. Those point to the HTML preview page by default, but you can modify them for direct access as documented in this help center article.
Also, be aware that these links are subject to the bandwidth limits documented here.
Thanks!
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