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Managing Dropbox from the Terminal with dbxcli

2026-07-28

dbxcli is a command-line client for Dropbox. It makes it possible to manage Dropbox files directly from a terminal, which is useful on servers, remote machines, or any environment where using the web interface is inconvenient.

Its main capabilities include:

  • Basic file operations such as ls, cp, mkdir, and mv
  • File search
  • File revision lookup and restore
  • Chunked uploads for large files, and paginated listing for large directories

Installing dbxcli

Download the binary for your system from the official release page. On a Linux amd64 system, the installation can be done like this:

wget https://github.com/dropbox/dbxcli/releases/download/v3.0.0/dbxcli-linux-amd64
mv dbxcli-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/dbxcli
chmod +x /usr/local/bin/dbxcli

After that, dbxcli can be called directly from the command line.

Linking a Dropbox account

Use dbxcli account to connect dbxcli with a Dropbox account. After running the command, it will display a URL. Open the URL in a browser, authorize the application, then copy the API request authorization code shown by Dropbox back into the terminal to complete verification.

➜  ~ dbxcli account
1. Go to https://www.dropbox.com/1/oauth2/authorize?client_id=07****jfsd***f9&response_type=code&state=state
2. Click "Allow" (you might have to log in first).
3. Copy the authorization code.
Enter the authorization code here: bR***miYqHoA******yDLEyh2ft3d*********
Logged in as bbq <[email protected]>

Account Id:        dbid:AACE7******7UoEko
Account Type:      basic
Locale:            zh-CN
Referral Link:     https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/***XJRk**********XewBy2b9******Of8c?src=app9-934508
Profile Photo Url:
Paired Account:    false
➜  ~

Checking Dropbox storage usage

The du command shows the current usage of the Dropbox account, including used space, account type, and allocated storage:

➜  ~ dbxcli du
Used: 3.2 GiB
Type: individual
Allocated: 20 GiB

Common file operations

dbxcli provides a set of familiar commands for working with remote Dropbox files and folders:

  cp          复制文件
  get         下载文件
  ls          列出文件
  mkdir       创建目录
  mv          移动文件
  put         上传文件
  restore     恢复文件
  revs        查询修改记录
  rm          移除文件
  search      搜索

For example, the following commands upload a file to Dropbox, list the target directory, check the file revision, and then download the same file back:

➜  ~ dbxcli put v2rayN-windows-64.7z /updir/v2rayN-windows-64.7z
Uploading 41 MiB/41 MiB
➜  ~ dbxcli ls /updir/
/updir/v2rayN-windows-64.7z
➜  ~ dbxcli revs /updir/v2rayN-windows-64.7z
637ab1d715d691d1ce78a
➜  ~ dbxcli get /updir/v2rayN-windows-64.7z
Downloading 41 MiB/41 MiB

Team management commands

Besides personal file operations, dbxcli also includes team management features. The team --help command lists the available team-related subcommands, such as adding or removing members, viewing team information, and listing groups or members.

➜  ~ dbxcli team --help
Team management commands

Usage:
  dbxcli team [command]

Available Commands:
  add-member    添加成员
  info          团队信息
  list-groups   组信息
  list-members  组成员
  remove-member 移除组成员

Flags:
  -h, --help   help for team

Global Flags:
      --as-member string   Member ID to perform action as
  -v, --verbose            Enable verbose logging

Use "dbxcli team [command] --help" for more information about a command.

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