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Forum Discussion
Shared Link / "scl" to "s"
Hello. My question concerns my recent issue with file sharing. Usually, my links were generated in this way: 'https://www.dropbox.com/s/'. However, lately, every file is being generated in this way: ...
Direct Download on new link architecture is Solved
What is the DL parameter?
- Default link. This will render the content in the Dropbox file viewer.
- Downloads the content of the link (if the user has access to the content based on link settings). This query parameter takes precedence even if raw=1 is also added.
- Directly renders the content in the browser (if the link has a public audience and no other restrictions). Note that this link has an HTTP 302 redirect, so the application or browser must be able to follow the redirect.
What are the dl.dropbox... modifications?
These are link transformations from the early days of Dropbox. While we don't "officially" list these anymore in our Help Center, we are continuing to support them for now.- Replacing www with dl works exactly like a ?raw=1 link: this will directly render content for public links in the browser. It requires following an HTTP 302 redirect.
- Works like a ?raw=1 link, but the application or browser will not need to follow an HTTP 302 redirect to access the content.
Not very good news from Support:
We are currently changing the way users create shared links. All new links now have the /scl/ token instead of /s/. We have never supported modifying links the way you are doing it (using dl.dropboxusercontent.com), and at the moment this functionality won't work on the new /scl/ links. Our engineers haven't committed to supporting this in the future, but things may change.
We are currently changing the way users create shared links. All new links now have the /scl/ token instead of /s/. We have never supported modifying links the way you are doing it (using dl.dropboxusercontent.com), and at the moment this functionality won't work on the new /scl/ links. Our engineers haven't committed to supporting this in the future, but things may change.
Adding my own note here:
- The rlkey bit makes links way longer than they used to be, which is a pain.
- Deleting that bit prompts a login, so not an option.
- Can no longer change www to dl to create a direct link, which is a major issue.
These are both issues that make the platform effectively useless for my purposes. I could maybe deal with Dropbox forcing people to view all files through their viewer, but the already massive links becoming 50% longer is an absolute game-breaker for me.
