DropboxMount turns your Dropbox into a live, on-demand drive instead of a sync folder.

DropboxMount turns your Dropbox into a live, on-demand drive instead of a sync folder. Instead of duplicating gigabytes of files onto your computer, it creates a special mount point that behaves like a network filesystem. Your Dropbox directory appears instantly, with all files and folders visible, but the contents are only downloaded when you open them. Saving changes writes them straight back to the cloud. This means you can browse your entire Dropbox without using up local disk space, and the experience feels closer to an NFS or WebDAV share than the heavyweight Dropbox desktop client.

How to Set Up DropboxMount on Linux 

This method uses FUSE (Filesystem in Userspace) to mount Dropbox as if it were a local drive. The tool we use is rclone, which supports Dropbox natively. 

1. Install rclone


sudo apt update
sudo apt install rclone


2. Configure Dropbox in rclone

rclone config

- Choose **n** for a new remote. - Name it something like `dropboxmount`. - Select `Dropbox` from the list of storage providers. - Follow the prompts to authorise with your Dropbox account (it will open a browser or give you a link). - Save and exit. It may give you a private key or something, save that.

Test the setup:

rclone ls dropbox:


3. Create a mount point

mkdir -p ~/DropboxMount


4. Mount Dropbox

rclone mount dropbox: ~/DropboxMount --vfs-cache-mode writes

`--vfs-cache-mode writes` ensures file changes are written correctly. - Once mounted, browse `~/DropboxMount/` as though it’s a normal folder.

5. Run it in the background

rclone mount dropbox: ~/DropboxMount --vfs-cache-mode writes --daemon


6. Unmount when done

fusermount -u ~/DropboxMount

Auto-mount with systemd (user service)

A) Create a user service file

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
vi ~/.config/systemd/user/dropboxmount.service

Paste this exact unit file:

[Unit] Description=Mount Dropbox as a FUSE drive via rclone After=network-online.target Wants=network-online.target
[Service] Type=simple ExecStart=/usr/bin/rclone mount dropbox: %h/DropboxMount --vfs-cache-mode writes --vfs-cache-max-size 2G --buffer-size 64M --dir-cache-time 5m
--poll-interval 1m ExecStop=/usr/bin/fusermount -u %h/DropboxMount || \     /usr/bin/fusermount3 -u %h/DropboxMount
Restart=on-failure RestartSec=5
[Install] WantedBy=default.target


B) Enable and start it for your user

systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable --now dropboxmount.service



C) Check status & logs

systemctl --user status dropboxmount.service
journalctl --user -u dropboxmount.service -f


Result: You now have a “cloud drive” that behaves like NFS: files appear instantly, download only on demand, and changes are synced back without hogging local storage.

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