The information in this article applies to all Dropbox users.
You can make simple edits to Dropbox links to share files the way you want. You can also append the link URL to force the content to download or render in your browser.
To force a browser to download the contents of a link rather than display them, you can use "dl=1" as a query parameter in your URL. For example:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a1b2c3d4ef5gh6/example.docx?dl=1
or
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<token.a>/file.jpg?rlkey=<token.b>&dl=1
Note: The original shared link URL may contain query string parameters already (for example, dl=0). App developers should be sure to properly parse the URL and add or modify parameters as needed. The links may also redirect to *.dropbox.com/s/dl.
Some browsers aren't configured to correctly preview files. While certain file types can be downloaded instead of opened, others—like HTML—are not supported.
To bypass the preview page and allow your browser to directly render your files, use "raw=1" as a query parameter in your URL, which should be available to anyone with no restrictions. Changing "dl=1" or "dl=0" to "raw=1" in a URL will cause an HTTP redirect. If you're an app developer using such a URL in your code, make sure your app can follow redirects.
Note: Shared links don’t render HTML content in a web browser. If you created a website that directly displays HTML content from your Dropbox account, it won’t render in the browser, and may redirect to "*.dropbox.com/s/raw". The HTML content itself remains in your Dropbox account and can be shared.
Note: For these links, the "rlkey" parameter must be retained for the URL to grant recipients access to the file or folder.
If you’re still having trouble and can’t force a shared link to download or render, contact the Dropbox support team.
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Whether you sent or received a shared link, it may fail to work or show a 404 error. If this happens, check the following examples.
An error message that says your sharing activity has been interrupted, could be due to a number of reasons. Learn how to resolve these error messages.
There are a few reasons why it may not be possible to share a folder or rejoin a shared folder in Dropbox. Find out how to fix issues with shared folders.
There are a few situations when your shared folders might not work as expected. Learn how to fix problems with shared folders.
