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When on Files, I'd like to be able to:

  • see the little icon overlays in files and folders that indicate whether they're up to date or synchronizing
  • when right-clicking on a file or folder inside the Dropbox folder, have the usual Dropbox items ("Get public link", "Open in dropbox.com", etc.) in the context menu

What's the best/easiest way to achieve this?

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  • FYI, there's an open bug for this integration (both in the file manager and in the wingpanel), and it has an associated bounty (currently $25) that anyone who solves this in elementary OS can claim :)
    – waldyrious
    Commented Aug 12, 2015 at 1:38

4 Answers 4

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The elementary OS daily PPA contains a Dropbox plugin for Pantheon, which seems a little bit outdated but still works fine.

Please don't add elementary-daily-PPA to your sources, it is for testing purposes only and may break your system!

Instead download the plugin and install it manually:
pantheon-files-plugin-dropbox i386
pantheon-files-plugin-dropbox amd64

There is a small bug in this package, but luckily we can fix it. After you installed pantheon-files-plugin, start pantheon in the terminal:

pantheon-files

now take a closer look at the output in the terminal. If you see this error message:

[_LOG_LEVEL_WARN 23:17:33.808365] PluginManager.vala:128: Failed to load module from path '/usr/lib/pantheon-files/plugins/libmarlin-dropbox.so': libmarlincore.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

close all instances of pantheon files and run this command in the terminal:

sudo ln -s /usr/lib/libpantheon-files-core.so.0 /usr/lib/libmarlincore.so.0

Run pantheon-files in the terminal again, the error message must be gone now.

Unfortunately the default elementary OS icon theme doesn't provide the necessary emblem icons. I've created some of my own and pushed them to elementary+. After you installed this icon theme (just follow the instructions on their GitHub page), you should see nice overlay icons and have a right click context-menu in your Dropbox folder:

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  • I followed these instructions (installed both the .deb and elementaryplus from the PPA as instructed in Github) and I still don't see any icons. Perhaps a restart or log out/in is necessary?
    – Gabriel
    Commented Jul 5, 2015 at 19:36
  • @Gabriel maybe it is necessary...
    – Rafael
    Commented Jul 5, 2015 at 19:38
  • The use of elementary Tweaks is discouraged both by the devs and the creator (who is not maintaining it anymore) It'd be better if you could instruct on how to select the icon set without having to use that app.
    – Gabriel
    Commented Jul 5, 2015 at 19:40
  • Um, this doesn't seem t work for me on Luna. The elementary+ PPA doesn't seem to support it: E: Unable to locate package elementaryplus. Also, given what @Gabriel said here in the comments, is this still something I should do? Is there any other way?
    – waldyrious
    Commented Jul 8, 2015 at 3:09
  • @waldyrious elementary+ only supports the current stable version Freya, I'm sorry :(
    – Rafael
    Commented Jul 8, 2015 at 7:34
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Juno

In Juno you install the integration plugin with:

sudo apt install pantheon-files-plugin-dropbox

This plugin was written by an elementary dev Cody Garver and it's in the official elementary PPA (already included in default software sources). Works pretty well, I got emblems as well as the right-click menu. No indicator or similar status-checking thingy though. It also doesn't pull Dropbox, so you still need nautilus-dropbox to install Dropbox itself (see apt show pantheon-files-plugin-dropbox)

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  • this solution got broken couple of weeks ago, so it no longer works :/
    – jena
    Commented Mar 16, 2019 at 12:34
-1

The above solution (with the plugin and elementary+) does not work for Loki.
The libmarlin-dropbox.so file is not even copied to /usr/lib.

You could also install Caja Dropbox that seems better integrated (but that would mean using caja instead of files).

It can be done :

  • either from the command line sudo apt install caja-dropbox caja

  • or from the Application Center

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  • Thanks for the info, but note that this answer has the exact same problem as the one by @pawel.ad: it doesn't fit the question's requirement of integrating into Files. The suggestion here is fine as a workaround, so it will certainly be useful to others, but it does not answer the original question.
    – waldyrious
    Commented Sep 14, 2016 at 11:32
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One option I used a while back is to switch from pantheon-files to nautilus (and its nautilus-dropbox), which should be avalible by default in your repositories.

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  • I don't think that this is the proper answer since he specifically said Files in the body of the question.
    – r3bl
    Commented Jul 5, 2015 at 22:10

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