Implement Dropbox Sync about cocalc HOT 9 OPEN

This could go in the new storage daemons...

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This could go in the new storage daemons...

which is soon to be the old storage stuff that is deleted :-)

Dropbox Sync is rarely requested by users... and I think some who really want it just do it anyways since SMC is just a Linux user after all.

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Ursula Whitcher: I saw a note on GitHub that Dropbox integration is not very frequently requested, so I thought I'd let you know that it's a feature I'm currently very interested in.

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Here is a quick workaround:

1. Create a new dropbox account and share a folder with yourself (for security and practicality reasons)

2. install the daemon
   dropbox start -i

3. and stop it, by default it starts running the daemon in the background
   dropbox stop

4. Start the daemon in the foreground by doing:
   ~/.dropbox-dist/dropboxd
   and follow the instructions, i.e., copy the link.
   After everything is done, hit CTRL + C, to stop it.

5. For last do
   dropbox start
   to run the daemon in the background

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Closing, because Dropbox recently made a very sad decision to not support Linux (except ext4 unencrypted, which is a nonstarter). So, we will probably never support Dropbox, and instead put our effort into Google Drive integration.

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Perhaps we should reopen this: I just discovered Maestral which was designed to directly support Dropbox integration on different file-systems. It is simple to install and use (but I have not done extensive testing yet). Just log in to your Dropbox account, then run:

pipx instal maestral
maestral start

Choose the Print auth URL to console option, open the URL and copy the resulting token. This will then sync everything in your ~/Dropbox (Maestral) folder (customizable).

There are some limitations of the public API (partial updates are not supported, so if you change a file, the entire file is re-sent, which might consume some bandwidth), but it seems to work quite well.

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Good idea! I'm re-opening this.

I didn't know about Maestral, but this seems great. Can anybody actually just use this now on any cocalc project with network access by just "pip install maestral" in a terminal in their project?

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@williamstein I think I would recommend pipx install maestral, but yes, it seems to work. (There is also a QT-based GUI. Not sure if that can somehow be exposed.)

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(There is also a QT-based GUI. Not sure if that can somehow be exposed.)

Maybe via X11 desktop.

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