dropbox-mcp

An MCP (Model Context Protocol) server that exposes the Dropbox API as tools for LLM agents. Built on FastMCP and dropbox-sdk-python.

Focus: recovery and discovery on an existing Dropbox account — restoring deleted files, listing revisions, searching content, and force-downloading cloud-only files. The server talks to the Dropbox server-side API, not the local sync folder, so it can see and restore files that local sync has already deleted.

Tools

All tool names are prefixed dropbox_ to avoid collisions with other MCP servers.

Read-only tools are safe to call freely. The four restore/download tools mutate state on Dropbox servers or local disk.

Installation

Prerequisites

• Python 3.10 or newer

• A Dropbox account and a Dropbox app with files.content.read, files.content.write, and files.metadata.read scopes

Install

git clone https://github.com/danielsimonjr/dropbox-mcp.git
cd dropbox-mcp
pip install -e .

Or, for dependencies only:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Authentication

The server loads credentials from ~/.claude/channels/dropbox/.env on startup. Create that file and paste in the template below, then fill in your values:

mkdir -p ~/.claude/channels/dropbox
touch ~/.claude/channels/dropbox/.env

Template:

# --- Option A: OAuth 2 refresh token (recommended) ---
# Create an app at https://www.dropbox.com/developers/apps, enable the scopes
# files.content.read, files.content.write, files.metadata.read, then run the
# OAuth flow once to obtain a refresh token.
DROPBOX_REFRESH_TOKEN=
DROPBOX_APP_KEY=
DROPBOX_APP_SECRET=

# --- Option B: Long-lived access token (fallback) ---
# Leave blank if you are using Option A above.
DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN=

# --- Optional ---
# Local Dropbox sync folder. Used by dropbox_download to write files.
# Defaults to ~/Dropbox if unset.
# DROPBOX_LOCAL_PATH=C:\Users\you\Dropbox

Two auth modes are supported, tried in order:

1. OAuth 2 refresh token (recommended): set DROPBOX_REFRESH_TOKEN, DROPBOX_APP_KEY, and DROPBOX_APP_SECRET. Access tokens are refreshed automatically, so credentials do not expire.

2. Legacy long-lived access token (fallback): set DROPBOX_ACCESS_TOKEN only. Simpler to get from the app console, but tokens expire after a few hours for newer apps.

Running the server

Directly (for testing)

python server.py

The server communicates over stdio, so there is no interactive output — it waits for MCP protocol messages on stdin.

With the MCP Inspector

npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector python server.py

This opens a browser UI where you can list tools and call them manually.

Registering with Claude Code

Add an entry to your ~/.claude/.mcp.json:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "dropbox": {
      "command": "python",
      "args": [
        "-X", "utf8",
        "C:\\path\\to\\dropbox-mcp\\server.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

The -X utf8 flag is recommended on Windows so that non-ASCII paths in results do not trip up the default cp1252 encoding.

Restart Claude Code for the registration to take effect.

Examples

Restore a file deleted by accident:

Agent: dropbox_restore(path="/Projects/report-final.docx")
Result: Restored: /Projects/report-final.docx (rev: abc123, size: 45678 bytes)

Find a file without knowing its exact location:

Agent: dropbox_search(query="RSP consciousness paper", max_results=5)
Result: Found 3 results for 'RSP consciousness paper':
      1.25 MB  2026-02-18  /Misc/Philosophy/Beyond the Bat/paper.pdf
      0.31 MB  2026-02-10  /Misc/Philosophy/Beyond the Bat/drafts/outline.md
      ...

Roll back to a specific earlier revision:

Agent: dropbox_list_revisions(path="/report.docx", limit=5)
Agent: dropbox_restore_revision(path="/report.docx", rev="0123abc")

Security notes

• The .env file holds long-lived credentials — keep it out of version control (the default .gitignore already excludes .env files).

• Restore and download tools are not idempotent from the user's perspective: they mutate Dropbox state or overwrite local files. Agents should confirm intent before invoking them, especially dropbox_restore_batch.

• The server binds to no network ports — communication is stdio only, so there is no inbound attack surface from the MCP layer itself. The only outbound connection is to api.dropbox.com via HTTPS.

• Logs go to stderr, never stdout (stdout is reserved for MCP protocol frames).

Development

# Syntax check
python -m py_compile server.py

# Quick smoke test (lists registered tools)
npx @modelcontextprotocol/inspector python server.py

For changes to the tool surface, update both this README and CHANGELOG.md in the same commit.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.