Dropbox Proxy

Communicates with Dropbox via a Cloudflare worker

Actions11

Overview

This node acts as a proxy to interact with Dropbox via a Cloudflare worker, enabling various file and folder operations on a Dropbox account. It supports actions such as downloading files, uploading files, copying, moving, deleting files or folders, creating folders, listing folder contents, and running custom queries.

A common use case is automating Dropbox file management workflows within n8n, for example:

  • Automatically downloading files from a specific Dropbox folder for processing.
  • Uploading generated reports or backups to Dropbox.
  • Organizing files by moving or copying them between folders.
  • Cleaning up old files by deleting them programmatically.

The "Download a File" operation specifically retrieves a file from Dropbox and outputs it as binary data, making it useful for workflows that need to fetch and process files stored in Dropbox.

Properties

Name Meaning
Path The path of the file or folder in Dropbox to operate on. For "Download a File", this is the path of the file to download.

Note: The provided properties JSON only includes the "Path" property relevant for multiple operations including "downloadFile".

Output

  • For the Download a File operation, the output contains binary data representing the downloaded file under the binary.data field.
  • Additionally, the output JSON includes:
    • success: A boolean indicating if the download was successful (always true if no error).
    • path: The original file path requested.

Example output structure for a downloaded file:

{
  "binary": {
    "data": {
      "data": "<binary file content>",
      "mimeType": "<detected mime type>"
    }
  },
  "json": {
    "success": true,
    "path": "/path/to/file"
  }
}

For other operations, the output is a JSON object containing the API response from Dropbox.

Dependencies

  • Requires an API key credential to authenticate with the Dropbox proxy Cloudflare worker.
  • The node expects two credential fields: a URL for the worker endpoint and an access token for Dropbox authorization.
  • No direct Dropbox SDK dependency; all communication is done via HTTP requests to the proxy service.
  • The node uses n8n's built-in HTTP request helper and binary data preparation utilities.

Troubleshooting

  • Missing credentials error: If the worker URL or access token is not set, the node will throw an error indicating missing credentials. Ensure the API key credential is configured properly.
  • File content required for upload: When using the upload operation, the node requires Base64 encoded file content. Omitting this will cause an error.
  • Unsupported operation: If an invalid operation is selected, the node throws an error specifying the unsupported operation.
  • HTTP errors from Dropbox API: Any issues like invalid paths, permission errors, or rate limits will be surfaced as errors from the Dropbox API via the proxy. Check the error message for details.
  • Binary data encoding: The node handles binary data correctly for downloads, but ensure downstream nodes can process binary data.

Links and References

Discussion