How to sync your Dropbox on a Chromebook
Google Chromebooks have a robust Google Drive cloud sync feature that makes your files available offline. However, not everyone uses Google Drive. Some use Dropbox.
The good news is that it is possible to Sync your Dropbox files on your Chromebook. This guide will show you how to sync your Dropbox files.
How to sync Dropbox via the Android app
If you have a Chromebook that supports Android, it is the way to go when syncing your Dropbox. There’s no need to fiddle with the Linux container system, and your files can be easily accessed offline.
However, you must install the Android app on your Chromebook before you can sync your Dropbox. To do that, open the Chrome OS Dash (app menu). Once it is open, search for “Dropbox.” You should see a link to its page on Google Play. Alternatively, open Google Play on Chrome OS and search for “Dropbox.”
Once you’ve located the Dropbox app, click on the “Install” button to install the Dropbox app via Google Play to your Chromebook. Installation shouldn’t take long.
How to sync your files
Syncing files to your Chromebook via the Dropbox Android app means making files “available offline.” This feature will download the file(s) to the Dropbox app for access offline.
To sync, launch the Dropbox app. Once launched, you will see the Dropbox sign-in area. Select “Sign in with Google” or one of the other options to log into your Dropbox account.
Once you are logged into your Dropbox account, find the file(s) you wish to sync (make available offline) and click on the menu next to it. Then, choose the “Make available offline” button to sync it to Chrome OS.
How to sync Dropbox via the Linux app
Syncing files via the Dropbox Android app on Chrome OS is helpful if you want a few files here and there. However, if you need regular access to Dropbox on your Chromebook, you’ll want to sync via the Linux app.
To start, you must enable Linux support on your Chromebook. First, open up the “Settings” app, and locate the “Advanced” section. Then, scroll down and find the “Developers” section.
Inside the developers’ section, select the Linux option, and click on the “Turn on” button to download and install the latest Debian container on your Chromebook. Then, open up the newly installed “Terminal” app via the Chrome OS app menu when it is finished.
Once the terminal app is open, locate “penguin” and click on it to access the Linux command line. Then, enter the two commands below.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade -y
How to install the Dropbox app
The Dropbox app is available as a DEB package and a Flatpak app. In this guide, we’ll cover both installation methods. However, we highly suggest following the Flatpak instructions for ease of use.
Flatpak
To install the Flatpak version of Dropbox on your Chromebook, you must set up the Flatpak runtime and the Flathub app store. Then, open the Chrome OS terminal by searching for “Terminal” in the app menu.
Once the terminal is open and ready to use, locate the “penguin” option, and click on it. Then, use the apt install command to set up the Flatpak package.
sudo apt install flatpak
When the Flatpak runtime is enabled, you must set up the Flathub runtime. You can do this will the command below.
flatpak --user remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo
With Flathub enabled, you can install the official Dropbox client on your Chromebook.
flatpak install flathub com.dropbox.Client
Debian
Another way to get Dropbox working on Linux is via the downloadable DEB package on the Dropbox website. To download the file to the Linux container, open the terminal via the Chrome OS app menu and select “penguin.”
Once the terminal window is open, download the Dropbox DEB package using the wget command. Then, install it using the apt install command.
wget https://linux.dropbox.com/packages/ubuntu/dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb sudo apt install ./dropbox_2020.03.04_amd64.deb
After installing the Dropbox package, install the “python3-gpg” and the “thunar” packages.
sudo apt install python3-gpg
Syncing on Linux
To sync, open the Chrome OS menu and launch the Dropbox app. It is found in the “Linux apps” sub-menu in the Chrome OS app menu. Once open, you will see a notification. Click the “OK” button to continue.
After clicking OK, Dropbox will open up a link in Chrome. Use the open page to connect your Dropbox account to the app. Once connected, Dropbox should automatically sync your files to the Linux container.
To access your files in Dropbox or to sync files, open up the Thunar file manager. You can launch Thunar via the Chrome OS app menu. Once Thunar is open, select the “Dropbox” folder.
If you need to add files from Chrome OS to Dropbox, open up the Chrome OS Files app, drag your files to “Linux files,” then open up Thunar and copy them to the “Dropbox” folder to sync.
