One month down in 2025: How are your resolutions coming along? Check out how to get back on track here.
Forum Discussion
Solved
DropBox API - token is short lived, why?
I'm trying to set up access to DropBox for some "enterprisey" tasks (we have a shared DropBox workspace where I work).
I've registered an OAuth2 app and went through https://www.dropbox.com/oauth2/authorize to get an authorization code and then used POST to https://api.dropbox.com/oauth2/token to exchange the code for a token.
Question:
The access token starts with "sl." which as I understand means is a short-lived token. There is an "expires_in: 14400" stanza which is 4 hours.
How can I get a non-expiring, permanent token?
My app is in "Development" status - is that why? I was not planning to apply for Production status because the "app's" only purpose is to get an access token, but if that's why, then I will have to.
Any recommendations?
Dropbox is no longer offering the option for creating new long-lived access tokens. Dropbox is now issuing short-lived access tokens (and optional refresh tokens) instead of long-lived access tokens. You can find more information on this migration here. This applies whether the app is in development or production status.
Apps can still get long-term access by requesting "offline" access though, in which case the app receives a "refresh token" that can be used to retrieve new short-lived access tokens as needed, without further manual user intervention. You can find more information in the OAuth Guide and authorization documentation. There's a basic outline of processing this flow in this blog post which may serve as a useful example.
- Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox is no longer offering the option for creating new long-lived access tokens. Dropbox is now issuing short-lived access tokens (and optional refresh tokens) instead of long-lived access tokens. You can find more information on this migration here. This applies whether the app is in development or production status.
Apps can still get long-term access by requesting "offline" access though, in which case the app receives a "refresh token" that can be used to retrieve new short-lived access tokens as needed, without further manual user intervention. You can find more information in the OAuth Guide and authorization documentation. There's a basic outline of processing this flow in this blog post which may serve as a useful example.Thank you Greg.
Just tried adding token_access_type=offline to the authorization request and indeed got a refresh token.
I have used OAuth2 before so know what to do next.
Cheers!
About Discuss Dropbox Developer & API
Make connections with other developers
