Important: Use v12.0.2 or newer of this SDK for compatibility with the Dropbox API servers. Older versions stopped working in January 2026. Please refer to this blog post for more information: https://dropbox.tech/developers/api-server-certificate-changes

The official Dropbox SDK for Python.

Documentation can be found on Read The Docs.

Requirements

This SDK requires Python 3.11 or newer. Earlier versions of Python, including Python 2.7 and Python 3.4 through 3.10, are not supported, as they have reached end of life and are no longer maintained upstream.

Installation

Create an app via the Developer Console.

Install via pip:

$ pip install dropbox

Install from source:

$ git clone git://github.com/dropbox/dropbox-sdk-python.git
$ cd dropbox-sdk-python
$ pip install .

After installation, follow one of our Examples or read the documentation on Read The Docs.

You can also view our OAuth Guide.

Examples

We provide Examples to help get you started with a lot of the basic functionality in the SDK.

• OAuth

  • Commandline OAuth Basic - Shows a simple example of commandline oauth (no redirect).
  • Commandline OAuth Scopes - Shows a simple example of commandline oauth using scopes.
  • Commandline OAuth PKCE - Shows a simple example of commandline oauth using PKCE.

• Other Examples

  • Updown - Sample application that uploads the contents of your Downloads folder to Dropbox.
  • Reliable file transfer - Downloads and uploads files with retry, progress, and content validation helpers.
  • Backup and Restore - Sample application that shows how you can backup a file and restore previous versions if the file was modified/corrupted in any way.

Reusing Cached Access Tokens

Dropbox.get_access_token_snapshot() and DropboxTeam.get_access_token_snapshot() read local cached credentials without HTTP requests or refreshing. They return an immutable AccessTokenSnapshot with access_token and expires_at, or None if no access token is cached. Expiration is a datetime using the constructor's expiration convention (naive UTC for SDK refreshes), or None when unknown.

import dropbox

# Load refresh credentials separately from your application's secure storage.
dbx = dropbox.Dropbox(
    oauth2_refresh_token=refresh_token,
    app_key=app_key,
    app_secret=app_secret,
)
dbx.users_get_current_account()  # Automatically refreshes when needed.
snapshot = dbx.get_access_token_snapshot()
if snapshot is not None:
    # Persist snapshot.access_token and snapshot.expires_at securely.
    next_dbx = dropbox.Dropbox(
        oauth2_access_token=snapshot.access_token,
        oauth2_access_token_expiration=snapshot.expires_at,
        oauth2_refresh_token=refresh_token,
        app_key=app_key,
        app_secret=app_secret,
    )
    next_dbx.users_get_current_account()

An explicit dbx.refresh_access_token() also updates the cache. Reading a snapshot never refreshes credentials: tokens may be expired or revoked, and an unknown expiration does not imply unlimited lifetime. Store access tokens securely and never log them. Snapshots never include refresh tokens.

clone(), with_path_root(), as_user(), and as_admin() copy the cached credentials at creation. Each client subsequently refreshes independently; unlike the .NET SDK, these clients do not share mutable credential state. Concurrent refreshes remain independent requests; each successful completion publishes a complete token/expiration pair, and failures preserve the cache.

Reliable File Transfers

Use dropbox.file_transfer when copying Dropbox files to or from local storage and you want retry, progress, validation, byte/file targets, stream/file sources, and optional parallel ranged transfers around the generated files_* methods.

import dropbox
from dropbox import files
from dropbox.file_transfer import (
    DownloadOptions,
    File,
    FileUpload,
    Uploader,
    UploadOptions,
    Downloader,
)

dbx = dropbox.Dropbox("YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN")

Downloader(dbx).download(
    "/large-file.bin",
    File("large-file.bin"),
    DownloadOptions(parallel_downloads=4),
)

Uploader(dbx).upload(
    FileUpload("large-file.bin"),
    files.CommitInfo("/large-file.bin", mode=files.WriteMode.overwrite),
    UploadOptions(parallel_uploads=4),
)

Getting Help

If you find a bug, please see CONTRIBUTING.md for information on how to report it.

If you need help that is not specific to this SDK, please reach out to Dropbox Support.

License

This SDK is distributed under the MIT license, please see LICENSE for more information.