How to Integrate OSDownloads with Dropbox

: Written by Steve Burge Steve Burge; Published: 17 October 2018 17 October 2018

How to Set OSDownloads for a Dropbox Files Repository

A few of our customers asked how to set OSDownloads for a remote files repository with Dropbox.

Dropbox offers fairly generous disk space. Letting your site users download files hosted with Dropbox will also save you bandwidth.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to configure OSDownloads Free to offer a file hosted with Dropbox for downloads.

For the purpose of this lesson, downloads will be available only to your site registered and logged in members.

Step #1. Upload the required file to Dropbox

Log into your Dropbox account and upload a required file. For my tutorial, I've uploaded a PDF file with our bestselling book Joomla 3 Explained.

click upload files

Excellent. You now have a file which you wish to offer for downloads via your OSDownloads component.

Next, you will create a URL link to this file. You will need this link in Step #3 in a minute.

Step #2. Get the file's URL

After the file upload is over, click Share:

click share

Next, click Create a link:

click create link

You should now see Anyone with the link can view this file:

anyone with link can view the file

Click Copy link:

click copy link

You should now see the file URL link highlighted and copied to your clipboard:

url highlighted

Good job! Now let's set OSDownloads at your site to offer this file for downloads.

Step #3. Create an OSDownloads file with the URL

In your Joomla control panel, go to OSDownloads > Files:

go to osdownloads free files

You will be taken to the OSDownloads Free: Files administrative page. Click New:

click new

Enter your file name into the Name field. For the purpose of this tutorial, I entered Download Joomla 3 Explained.
Set the file's access to the Registered user group.
Paste the link you copied in the previous step into the File URL field:

paste the link into the file url field

Now replace zero in the dl=0 bit at the end of the URL to 1. So, your link should resemble:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/abc0de5fgh123ij/Joomla-3-Explained.pdf?dl=1

Click Save & Close.

Excellent! At this point, your file is ready at Dropbox. Your Joomla and OSDownloads are ready to offer this file to the site's registered and logged in visitors for download.

You just need to make the file seen by them.

Step #4. Create the file's front end menu item

In your Joomla control panel, go to Menus > <Your Required Menu> > Add New Menu Item:

add new menu item

Enter your menu item title into the Menu Title field. For my tutorial, I entered Download Joomla 3 Explained.
Set Access to the Registered user group.
Click Select.

enter the title click select