You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
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: 'https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/'. Do you know a way to restore the old way of generating links? I just need old way of links, because game can't read new links
Greet 😛
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.
Previously I used to show the images uploaded to Dropbox on my website by just changing dl=0 to raw=1 and it used to work. Like https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2dy95zd8x42ltr/seller2_F621.jpeg?dl=0 This link should open a Dropbox page as there was dl=0 and by changing it to raw=1, https://www.dropbox.com/s/v2dy95zd8x42ltr/seller2_F621.jpeg?raw=1 This link should open direct image so using this URL, i could display that image on my web page. But now it is not working for new images. Like first of all, it generated share link like this: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fwrhf6r6uqggydb4dhqwl/seller1_ip122.jpeg?dl=0&rlkey=s0867maaaffmhxcp9swed2q05 Which has few more parameters than the previous version. Here even by changing thoes parameters, it is not showing direct image. It just leads to Dropbox page. I fetched these links using API for Dropbox Developers. I used to store thoes fetched links and changing dl=0 to raw=1 so that I could directly access images to webpage.
If you know solution about it then please share!
Hi pritesh12,
Did you try the following:
Seems it works. Although, as always, links are not direct, but you know this. It's not an issue for browsers.
Good luck.
- So I have found a workaround. If you have the Dropbox app on your phone and you go to the file that you are trying to create the link, it actually creates the S/link instead of the SCL link. What you have to do is go into your file, click the three dots next to the content in the file, whether it be an MP3 file or a video file, click share, and then click copy link from inside the mobile app, this creates a file link with the S/instead of SCL/.
I'm a long-time Dropbox user, and I always use the MacOS Dropbox app so I can get the direct links via the Mac Finder or Dropbox app in the top menu bar.
In the last few days, I notice that newly uploaded files have even longer links than files did in the past, and every time I try to download a file to test the link, I get a pop-up message from Safari asking permission to download each file.
I'm used to Safari asking me to allow downloads from a certain website but after I give permission, it never asked me again. It's almost as if each file/link have their own domain because I now have to give permission to download every file I test.
The longer links are terrible and so is the new security behavior.
If anybody from Dropbox reads this, please fix this ASAP and make it work like it used to.Here is some more info:
https://twitter.com/MysteryRoomMKE/status/1681092910480084994?s=20For the love of god STOP MAKING DROPBOX WORSE year after year. All these changes nobody asks for is making it total garbage.
While generating a link for any image, extra characters like "rel=" are coming. for example extra characters are ?rlkey=s19isqnnqg5soyv0utiub28hr". And due to this extra string in URL, no one is able to access it. Please suggest how to fix it?
Hello! When I upload a file to dropbox and then copy the link, this string of characters now appears after the .jpg:
?rlkey=0wpyuy3v0c1pufara2weu9jlr&dl=0
which is causing an issue with software that reads these files names (that used to end in .jpg)
Is this a new change on Dropbox? I am having trouble figuring out if I can revert back to the file names ending with simply .jpg
Thank you!
Eric
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Hey aashirwad and ewgibb00, I moved your posts to this relevant thread.
I would suggest you take a look at the entire thread and the solution as well, for more info and if you have any more questions, please let us know.
Justin P.2, we understand where you're coming from and we've made sure that your feedback is passed along to our team.
Hannah Modifying EVERY link I send out is not a solution. I send out dozens of links every day that I copy from the Mac Finder and paste into an email.
For fun, I tried the "solution" to see what it was like but it still gave me the pop-up box in Safari when I tried to download the file.
This is what we need:
1) A link that doesn't have a ton of extra characters after the file name2) A link that automatically downloads without having to approve EACH FILE. I understand having to approve downloads from Dropbox the first time in Safari but not for EVERY SINGLE FILE.
Again, my method of changing the 0 to 1 stems from another bad idea that lets users see inside zip files on the Dropbox website. Users get confused by this and start navigating inside the zip file instead of downloading it.
This recent link change has made Dropbox go from kind of annoying to terrible.
Please fix the issue and revert to how it used to work.
I don't see anything in the "solution" that is a real solution for people that copy and paste many links each day.
Just started having an issue with the generation of links where additional info is now being added to the link between the ? and the dl=0. Also have seen numerous complaints on Discord for this same issue. These links are used by Rust game servers to download .map files that people have created. The only change made to them is =0 is changed to =1 for use with Rust servers. The addition of the erroneous info causes the file not to be accessible or downloadable.
Example link(non real link):
before additional info:
[email removed as per Community Guidelines] after additional info:removed
Thank you very much, and the new info explains what is going on. It means for those using DropBox to store .map files for use in Rust game servers will not be able to use generated links for this until such time as Facepunch decides to alter the format they use for this.
Having the same problem with just one file. All my other files generate normal links. Now I'm getting an scl rlkey etc one that's causing us issues.
Hi!
I'm following a tutorial that would allow me to use a certain certificate multiple times instead of requesting a download link through a complicated process every time I need it.
The dl.dropboxusercontent.com link in that video looks like https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/XXXXXXXXXX/file.zip
But mine comes as https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/XXXXXXXXXXXX/file.zip?rlkey=XXXXXXXXXXX&dl=0
I saw that the /scl/ format is new and that's how it's gonna be from now on, but wondering if it's still possible to change it somehow as the current formatting doesn't work as on the tutorial which is 12 months old. Also, I tried both dl=1 and raw=1 or whatever the option is.
Any help would be appreciated.
I do upload and then create share links for my photos, replacing dl=0 with raw=1 and everything was good but today I hit a problem. When trying to open my photo from the browser where I am signed in to dropbox - I can do it easily, but when I try to do it from other devices/browsers - I hit an error
You can try it yourself (screenshots and links would be below)[Removed as per Community Guidelines]
from main browser:from other devices:
I am trying to do every step manually and using API - result is the same. Please help me
- Jay
HI ogurchik222, I've merged you to this post to keep similar queries together.
Could you have a look at the suggestions in the thread to see if they help?
15 pages of answers which I should read....
nice support)
I am not sure if it is directly related to your issue, but I came here for a similar problem with the new format of the download links while working on linux:
I used to download files through the wget comand:
wget https://www.dropbox.com/s/blahblah/file.tar
while trying to use the new links in this way:
wget https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/blahblah/file.tar?rlkey=123456789&dl=0I had the problem that everything that came after the ? in the link was appended to the file name, so I had a file called:
file.tar?rlkey=123456789etc
It took me a while, but I found in a similar post I could use '--content-disposition' flag to the wget command and problem solved. I used it like this:
wget --content-disposition "https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/blahblah/file.tar?rlkey=123456789&dl=0"
Here is where I found the answer:
Re: Why was a new key added to share links? No lon... - Page 4 - Dropbox Community (dropboxforum.com)
