[TIP] Send ANY File to iPhone With Dropbox

[ViViDboarder]

So I have been using Dropbox a lot lately and found a neat little trick with the Dropbox app for the iPhone. I looked around and didn't see it mentioned so I thought I'd let people know.

I use my Dropbox account on my iMac to host some files like .debs that I develop and sometimes need to get them on my phone.

Since ALL files show up on the iPhone app, not just ones that are viewable, you can still touch any file, in my case a .deb, and let it load. You'll see your phone downloading and then it will say "Unable to View File". That's fine. Your phone already downloaded it. Hit the star button to Favorite the file. This will keep it stored on your phone.

Next you need to find the file. I use iFile (just the free trial version) to access the files. Open iFile and go to /var/mobile/Applications/ and look for the iFile folder. In the iFile app folder continue on to /var/mobile/Applications/[iFile]/Library/Caches/CachedFiles/ and then hit the little bookmark button on the bottom of the screen to bookmark this location as your "Dropbox Files".

You're all set! Not whenever you want to sync your files to your iPhone just open up dropbox and make sure that you have all files updated or favorite your new files. Then go to iFile and go to your Dropbox Files bookmark and there they are!

This is only a ONE WAY sync though. So you can't update files FROM the iPhone to Dropbox yet. I have been working on a solution for uploading files from the iPhone but I am running into some Applescript issues. If anyone wants to help me out with that just comment and I'll let you know where I'm at with it.

 

[aflb-nexus]

Hi ViViDboarder,

Really interresed by your thread.

I'm looking too to find a way to send files to dropbox from the iphone (actually files downladed with safari download plugin in /var/mobile/Library/Download).

After studying the way dropbox iphone works, I realize that it will be complicated.

As alternative ways I found maildrop but it's a windows application...

I'm looking on the wiki http://wiki.dropbox.com/DropboxAddons for any usefull tools

I saw an iDrop BETA application, doing the stuff webkit based but not really easy to handle (no browsing)

I'm using iFile and we can add files as mail attachment but it is not really usefull.

So what is the solution you are working on ?

Thanks

 

[aflb-nexus]

I've found my solution...

I've alreay a dropbox without UI running on a linux box.

So, I create a special email adress catched by fetchmail and delivered to procmail.

I've defined some rules to do some actions (ex: in the subject add dropbox Files/Documents/Stuff) and place the attachement according to.

I know it's weird, ugly... but I don't find any solution. (and dropbox iphone app is chrooted so you can't get out the sandbox... pictures loading is certainly made by API call).

 

[ViViDboarder]

I've found my solution...

I've alreay a dropbox without UI running on a linux box.

So, I create a special email adress catched by fetchmail and delivered to procmail.

I've defined some rules to do some actions (ex: in the subject add dropbox Files/Documents/Stuff) and place the attachement according to.

I know it's weird, ugly... but I don't find any solution. (and dropbox iphone app is chrooted so you can't get out the sandbox... pictures loading is certainly made by API call).

Close to what I was trying to do. I was trying to use an Applescript and a mail rule to read the subject just like you were doing and save attachments to my dropbox folder. It would be very smooth but it just wouldn't work... Not sure why. I had a post a while back in the Applscript forum but had no luck with responses.

 

[foob]

I quit using Dropbox because of all this. They have a web upload thing, but it's in flash. Big help there.

If you didn't mind doing it through MobileTerminal, you could use scp to transfer the files from your phone to the Dropbox directory on your computer. See "ssh security" in my signature. There is enough there to set it up to transfer files without needing a password or using a long command. You'd still have to use MobileTerminal though.

 

[ViViDboarder]

I quit using Dropbox because of all this. They have a web upload thing, but it's in flash. Big help there.

If you didn't mind doing it through MobileTerminal, you could use scp to transfer the files from your phone to the Dropbox directory on your computer. See "ssh security" in my signature. There is enough there to set it up to transfer files without needing a password or using a long command. You'd still have to use MobileTerminal though.

Yea, I use sftp pretty often, but it'd just be nice to have a simpler method. Oh well.

Actually, now that I think about it, not like emailing the file is too much more simple than scp. I'll just make a .sh script for it or something.

 

[aflb-nexus]

The problem with scp/sftp is that not all mobile operators open the ports to allow this kind of transfert. That's why I use email attachement.

In my case, it is for send nzb or torrent files to my own dwldbox.

I'm using dropbox on the other machine (to avoid expose ssh over the internet) to put my files but no way on iphone to have the same behaviour.

So to sum up,

On th iphone I use :
SafariDownloadplugin to get the files
iFile to make a zip and send as attachement

On the server (linux) :
fecthmail to get the mail from imap account
procmail to execute a script depending of the subject and contents of the mail received (example : nzb add categorie=movie, will put the attachement on the good folder)
dropbox (without UI) to sync my dropbox account

On my other machines :
Dropbox to add the files I want to dwld.

But, an all featured dropbox client on the iphone could be great (but I'm sure it will be only available for jailbroken iphone due to sandboxing system).