How to Access Dropbox Cloud Storage with Rclone

Rclone is an open-source project that allows you to access remote cloud storage through command line interface. It works on all the popular platforms like Windows, macOS, Linux and more. It is compatible with dozens of cloud storage providers including Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Sugarsync, Dropbox, Hubic etc. It can work with simple HTTP and FTP based remote servers too. It is really useful when you do not want to install the cloud storage syncing app and just casually want to sync, copy, or download files from the cloud. Accessing your Dropbox cloud storage account using Rclone is extremely easy.

First of all you have to configure Rclone to work with Dropbox. For configuring Rclone with Dropbox, you have to give a simple command: rclone config which would take you through all the steps necessary for authorizing Rclone with your Dropbox account. Basically, you have to choose to add “new remote”, give it a name, choose Cloud provider from the list, leave user authentication fields blank, and authorize Rclone to access Dropbox in your web browser.

Using Dropbox with Rclone

Once configuration is complete, everything is easy. You can use remote cloud storage just like any drive. For example, if you want to see the list of files on Dropbox, then give the command rclone ls Dropbox: (here Dropbox is the name we picked for our Dropbox account when configuring, you can have any name like doppy, trishabox or anything else).

Using Dropbox with Rclone

You can run supported file operations on the remote cloud storage as usual. For example, you can copy files from local hard drive to Dropbox storage and vice versa. In order to copy files from local to remote, you can use command like rclone copy 1.jpg Dropbox: and for the reverse rclone copy Dropbox:1.jpg D:\folder\.

Using Dropbox with Rclone

Rclone comes with a text based file explorer too which reminds of Norton Commander of old times or its modern clone FAR Manager. But Rclone’s file explorer is very limited in nature compared to Norton Commander. For using this feature, you can give command like rclone ncdu Dropbox:

Using Dropbox with Rclone

If you want to find and remove duplicate files on the remote cloud storage, then Rclone has a de-duplicator tool for you. For using this tool, you have to give a command rclone dedupe Dropbox: You can find all these commands with full explanation on Rclone website.

You can download Rclone from https://rclone.org/.