Magpie 🐦

Elixir client for the Dropbox API v2, built on Req.

Like the bird, Magpie collects and stashes your things — in your Dropbox.

Installation

Add magpie to your dependencies in mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:magpie, "~> 0.1"}
  ]
end

No configuration is required. The Dropbox endpoints can be overridden (rarely needed), and extra Req options can be merged into every request:

config :magpie,
  base_url: "https://api.dropboxapi.com/2",
  upload_url: "https://content.dropboxapi.com/2/",
  req_options: []

Usage

client = Magpie.Client.new("DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN")

# Who am I?
Magpie.Users.current_account(client)

# List a folder
{:ok, %{"entries" => entries}} = Magpie.Files.ListFolder.list_folder(client, "/Photos")

# Create a folder
{:ok, %{"metadata" => folder}} = Magpie.Files.create_folder(client, "/Backup")

# Upload a file
Magpie.Files.upload(client, "/Backup/report.pdf", "priv/report.pdf")

# Download a file
{:ok, %{body: contents}} = Magpie.Files.download(client, "/Backup/report.pdf")

Every call returns {:ok, result} on success or {:error, %Magpie.Error{}} on API errors — with the HTTP status, Dropbox's error_summary and the full error body.

High-level flows

Magpie automates the multi-endpoint dances the Dropbox API expects from you (see the Examples guide for more):

# Smart upload: single request for small files, chunked upload session for
# big ones — streaming from disk, picked automatically
{:ok, _} = Magpie.Files.upload_file(client, "/Backup/db.dump", "priv/db.dump")

# Lazy pagination: cursors and /continue calls hidden behind a Stream
client
|> Magpie.Files.ListFolder.stream("/Photos")
|> Stream.filter(&(&1[".tag"] == "file"))
|> Enum.take(100)

# Async batch jobs: polling with exponential backoff
{:ok, launch} = Magpie.Files.MoveBatch.move_batch(client, entries)
{:ok, result} = Magpie.Async.await(client, launch, &Magpie.Files.MoveBatch.check/2)

Covered endpoints

Magpie covers all current user-scoped routes of the Dropbox API v2 (132 routes as of August 2026), verified against the official dropbox-api-spec:

• files — upload (single and sessions, incl. batch), download, download_zip, export, copy/move/delete (incl. batches), list_folder (+ continue, cursor, longpoll), metadata, search, thumbnails, previews, temporary links and upload links, save_url, tags, locks, Paper-as-files
• sharing — shared links (create/modify/revoke/list/download), file members, folder members, full shared-folder lifecycle
• file_properties — property groups and templates (user- and team-owned)
• file_requests — create, get, update, list, count, delete
• users / account / auth / check / contacts / openid
• paper — legacy /paper/docs/* kept for compatibility (deprecated by Dropbox — prefer Magpie.Files.Paper)

Dropbox Business (/team/*) routes are out of scope.

Testing

The test suite runs entirely offline using Req.Test stubs — every endpoint wrapper is verified against the exact route it must hit, and the high-level flows are tested end-to-end:

mix test            # run the suite
mix coveralls       # run with coverage report (currently ~94% line coverage)

Origin

Magpie started as a fork of sger/elixir_dropbox, which is no longer maintained (its GitHub repository has been deleted). The code has since been modernized: HTTPoison/Poison were replaced with Req/Jason, and the test suite was rewritten with Req.Test. Credit and thanks to the original Elixir Dropbox contributors.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.