Dropbox REST API Part 1: Authentication
December 29, 2011
I’ve been using Dropbox for about 6 months now. Before that I relied on Google Documents to share my files between the computers I use. Of course I had to login first and then I had to download them. Kind of a drag, certainly with big files.
With Dropbox that’s a thing of the past. Just install the client software and it will synchronize all of your files automatically. They are neatly downloaded into a local Dropbox folder on each of your computers. And only the parts of the file that actually changed are transferred, greatly reducing the download time.
Another neat feature is that other applications can use your Dropbox folder to store their data. For instance, I use a password manager (AgileBit’s 1Password) to securely save my login accounts. If I create a new account for a site on my laptop, then when I start my desktop it will automatically be known there once Dropbox has synched 1Password’s files (which is nearly instantanously).
This is made possible thanks to the Dropbox REST API. Let’s find out how we can use it…
