Miscellaneous Tools

Multi-Dropbox

Wrapper allowing multiple Dropbox instances to run simultaneously.

Support for multiple linked Dropbox accounts is native in Windows, but sadly not available under Linux - this script provides something similar. It is designed as an aid to people who have both home and professional Dropbox accounts.

It will also allow you to have multiple Dropbox instances running for unlinked accounts.

The "Primary Dropbox" is spawned normally, subsequent ones are started in fake home directories. Each instance must be logged in and configured individually.

Usage:

$ multi-dropbox.sh --help
$ multi-dropbox.sh start

# Log in and configure each instance

$ multi-dropbox.sh symlinks # Optional

$ multi-dropbox.sh status

On first start of a new instance Dropbox will go through the process of downloading its binaries and signing in. It is recommended that you pay close attention to the console where you ran multi-dropbox.sh as it will tell you which instance you signing in for.

If you are unsure, do each account one at a time:

# Set up the primary
$ DROPBOXES= multi-dropbox.sh start

# Set up the first secondary instance
$ DROPBOXES=FirstInstance multi-dropbox.sh start

# Set up the second secondary instance
$ DROPBOXES=FirstInstance SecondInstance multi-dropbox.sh start
...

Configuring

Optionally the environment variables below can be defined:

• DROPBOX the path of the Dropbox executable. E.g.

  DROPBOX=/opt/bin/dropbox multi-dropbox.sh start

  Default value is /usr/bin/dropbox.

• DROPBOXES space separated list of additional Dropbox names. Note that the a primary is always started E.g.

  DROPBOXES=DropboxWork DropboxShared

  Default value is Dropbox-Work. If you want something different, it is recommended that you add to the config file ~/.multi-dropbox-rc which is read by multi-dropbox.sh, thus:

  echo "DROPBOXES=\"DropboxWork DropboxShared\"" >> ~/.multi-dropbox-rc

Actions on specific instances

For the primary instance, just use Dropbox as you normally would, for example:

dropbox throttle unlimited auto

For secondary instances we must fool the Dropbox client into using the secondary install. Executing multi-dropbox.sh homes will display the command required to execute Dropbox for each instance:

$ multi-dropbox.sh homes
HOME="/home/nat/.multi-dropbox/Dropbox-Work" /usr/bin/dropbox

$ HOME="/home/nat/.multi-dropbox/Dropbox-Work" /usr/bin/dropbox exclude list
...

git-prune.sh

Simple shell script for removing local branches that have been removed from the origin.

git-prune.sh