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https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral

Open-source Dropbox client for macOS and Linux
https://github.com/SamSchott/maestral

dropbox-client dropbox-sync linux macos python

Last synced: 3 months ago
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Open-source Dropbox client for macOS and Linux

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# Maestral 



A light-weight and open-source Dropbox client for macOS and Linux.



## About



Maestral is an open-source Dropbox client written in Python. The project's main goal is to

provide a client for platforms and file systems that are no longer directly supported by

Dropbox.



Maestral currently does not support Dropbox Paper, the management of Dropbox teams, and

the management of shared folder settings. If you need any of this functionality, please

use the Dropbox website or the official client. Maestral does support syncing

multiple Dropbox accounts and excluding local files from sync with a ".mignore" file.



The focus on "simple" file syncing does come with advantages: on macOS, the Maestral App

bundle is significantly smaller than the official Dropbox app and uses less memory. The

exact memory usage will depend on the size of your synced Dropbox folder and can be further

reduced when running Maestral without a GUI.



Maestral uses the public Dropbox API which, unlike the official client, does not support

transferring only those parts of a file which changed ("binary diff"). Maestral may

therefore use more bandwidth that the official client. However, it will avoid uploading

or downloading a file if it already exists with the same content locally or in the cloud.



## Warning



- Never sync a local folder with both the official Dropbox client and Maestral at the same

  time.

- Network drives and some external hard drives are not supported as locations for the

  Dropbox folder.



## Installation



An app bundle is provided for macOS Catalina and higher and can be downloaded from the

Releases tab. This app Bundle is also package as a Homebrew cask.



On other platforms, you can download and install Maestral as a Python package from PyPI or

as a Docker image from Docker Hub.



For more detailed information on the installation, setup and system requirements, please

check the [documentation](https://maestral.app/docs/installation).



### Homebrew



The official Maestral releases are also available as Homebrew casks. If you have

[Homebrew](https://brew.sh) on your system, you can install using:



```console

$ brew install maestral

```



### Python package using PyPI



Is is recommended to install Maestral inside a virtual environment as follows:



```console

$ python3 -m venv maestral-venv

$ source maestral-venv/bin/activate

(maestral-venv)$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade maestral

```



If you intend to use the graphical user interface, you also need to specify the GUI option

during installation or upgrade. This will install the `maestral-qt` frontend and `PyQt5`

on Linux and `maestral-cocoa` on macOS:



```console

(maestral-venv)$ python3 -m pip install --upgrade 'maestral[gui]'

```



### Docker image



A Docker image is available for x86, arm/v7 (32bit) and arm64 platforms and can be

installed with:



```colsole

$ docker pull maestraldbx/maestral

```



## Usage



Run `maestral gui` in the command line (or open the Maestral app on macOS) to start

Maestral with a graphical user interface. On its first run, Maestral will guide you

through linking and configuring your Dropbox and will then start syncing.



screenshot macOS

screenshot Fedora



### Command line usage



After installation, Maestral will be available as a command line script by typing

`maestral` in the command prompt. Type `maestral --help` to get a full list of available

commands. The most important are:



- `maestral gui`: Starts the Maestral GUI. Creates a sync daemon if not already running.

- `maestral start|stop`: Starts or stops the Maestral sync daemon.

- `maestral pause|resume`: Pauses or resumes syncing.

- `maestral autostart -Y|-N`: Sets the daemon to start on log in.

- `maestral status`: Gets the current status of Maestral.

- `maestral filestatus LOCAL_PATH`: Gets the sync status of an individual file or folder.

- `maestral excluded add|remove|list`: Command group to manage excluded folders.

- `maestral ls DROPBOX_PATH`: Lists the contents of a directory on Dropbox.

- `maestral notify snooze N`: Snoozes desktop notifications for N minutes.



Maestral supports syncing multiple Dropbox accounts by running multiple instances

with different configuration files. This needs to be configured from the command

line by passing the option `--config-name` to `maestral start` or `maestral gui`.

Maestral will then select an existing config with the given name or create a new one.

For example:



```console

$ maestral start --config-name="personal"

$ maestral start --config-name="work"

```



This will start two instances of Maestral, syncing a private and a work account,

respectively. Configs will be automatically cleared when unlinking an account. You can

list all currently linked accounts with `maestral config-files`. The above setup for

example will return the following on macOS:



```console

$ maestral config-files



Config name  Account          Path

maestral     [email protected]   ~/Library/Application Support/maestral/maestral.ini

private      [email protected]  ~/Library/Application Support/maestral/private.ini

```



By default, the Dropbox folder names will contain the capitalised config-name in braces.

In the above case, this will be "Dropbox (Personal)" and "Dropbox (Work)".



A full documentation of the CLI is available on the

[website](https://maestral.app/cli).



## Contribute



There are multiple topics that could use your help. Some of them are easy, such as adding

new CLI commands, others require more experience, such as packaging for non-macOS

platforms. Look out for issues marked with "good first issue" or "help wanted".



Relevant resources are:



- [Maestral API docs](https://maestral.readthedocs.io)

- [Dropbox API docs](https://www.dropbox.com/developers/documentation/http/documentation)

- [Dropbox Python SDK docs](https://dropbox-sdk-python.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)



[CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md) contains detailed information on the expected code

style and test format.



If you are using the macOS app bundle, please consider sponsoring the project with £1 per

month to offset the cost of an Apple Developer account to sign and notarize the bundle.



## System requirements



- macOS 10.15 Catalina or higher or Linux

- Python 3.7 or higher

- For the system tray icon on Linux:

  - [gnome-shell-extension-appindicator](https://github.com/ubuntu/gnome-shell-extension-appindicator)

    on Gnome 3.26 and higher