How to Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 16.04

This tutorial shows 2 ways to install Dropbox on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus. The first method uses the graphical interface; the second uses terminal command line.

Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 16.04 the Graphical Way

Go to Dropbox Linux version download page. Download the Ubuntu deb package. Select 64-bit or 32-bit according to your OS architecture. 

Once downloaded, open file manager, navigate to the Download folder. Then right-click the Dropbox deb package, select Open With Software Install.

Ubuntu Software will be opened.

Click the Install button to install Dropbox CLI and Nautilus extension. You need to enter your password in order to install software. Once this step is finished, a window will appear. Click Start Dropbox.

Then click OK button to download and install the proprietary Dropbox daemon.

Once the installation is complete, you can login with your Dropbox account and start using Dropbox to back up or sync your files.

If you look closely, you can see that Dropbox will not be able to verify binary signatures if python-gpgme is not installed. We can install python-gpgme by executing this command in the terminal.

sudo apt install python-gpgme

Dropbox Linux client supports HTTP, SOCKS4 and SOCKS5 proxy. You can configure proxy in Dropbox Preferences > Proxies. This is useful if your country or area is banned from accessing Dropbox.

Install Dropbox on Ubuntu 16.04 from the Command Line

Open a terminal window and edit sources.list file with nano text editor.

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Use down arrow key to scroll to the bottom of this file. Copy and paste the following line at the end the file. This will add the Dropbox Ubuntu repository.

deb [arch=i386,amd64] http://linux.dropbox.com/ubuntu wily main

Press CTRL+O to save the file. Press CTRL+X to close the file. Then run the following command to import Dropbox GPG key to your Ubuntu 16.04 system.

 sudo apt-key adv --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 1C61A2656FB57B7E4DE0F4C1FC918B335044912E

Now update package list and install Dropbox.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install dropbox python-gpgme

Once it’s finished, you can start Dropbox from Unity Dash.

Or by typing this command in terminal.

dropbox start

Then click OK button to download and install the proprietary Dropbox daemon.

Once the installation is complete, you can login with your Dropbox account and start using Dropbox to back up or sync your files.

For more Dropbox command line usage, issue this command:

man dropbox

To uninstall Dropbox Linux client on Ubuntu, run apt-get remove.

sudo apt-get remove dropbox

Install Dropbox on Linux Server

First, download the Dropbox for server.

wget -O dropbox-linux.tar.gz https://www.dropbox.com/download?plat=lnx.x86_64

Extract it to /opt/dropbox directory.

sudo mkdir /opt/dropbox

sudo tar xzfv dropbox-linux.tar.gz --strip 1 -C /opt/dropbox

Then run the dropbox client.

/opt/dropbox/dropboxd

You will be asked to link your server to your Dropbox account. Copy and paste the link it gives you to the browser and sign in with your Dropbox account. Click the connect button.

Once the link is complete, press CTRL+C to quit Dropbox. You will see a Dropbox folder in your home directory.

To run Dropbox daemon in the background, append ampersand character.

/opt/dropbox/dropboxd &

To enable auto start with system boot, add a cron job.

@reboot /opt/dropbox/dropboxd

If you like to set up your own cloud storage server, you can check out the open source ownCloud or nextCloud.

I hope this article helped you to install Dropbox on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Xenial Xerus. As always, if you found this post useful, then subscribe to our free newsletter. You can also follow us on Google+, Twitter or like our Facebook page.