Support

Under some circumstances using a for-a-fee cloud storage service may be beyond the budget of the client, as is usually the case with personal or very small business websites. Dropbox offers an inexpensive storage service, giving out the first 2 Gb of storage for free. Moreover, they offer a desktop client application which synchronizes the files stored in the cloud with those stored locally on a specified directory. Within the scope of backup, this is a very desirable feature, as it allows for automatic redundant storage of the backup archives on the local PC (actually, on any number of local PCs!), without any manual intervention.

To this end, we decided to include support for Dropbox storage. If you've followed the instructions so far, it's Dropbox setup time! In the Configuration page, right below the Archiver Engine setting there's another setting called Post-processing engine. Use the drop-down to select the Upload to DropBox (v2 API) option and then click the button titled Configure… next to it. You should now see a pane opening below this row.

In this configuration details pane you have to login to Dropbox. It is a two step authentication process. First click on the Authorisation - Step 1 button. It will open a popup box which will ask you to log in to Dropbox. This popup executes a page in Dropbox's servers, so that Akeeba Solo / Akeeba Backup never knows your email and password. After logging in, you are asked to press a button to transfer the access token to your Akeeba Backup / Akeeba Solo installation. Please do so. The popup closes automatically. Should you want to revoke this access, you can do that from your Dropbox account.

The Directory defines a directory inside your Dropbox account where you want the backup files to be stored and must have been already created. Do note that as per Dropbox.com standards the path separator for the directory is the forward slash. For example, writing first_level\second_level is wrong, whereas first_level/second_level is the correct form. I recommend using one directory for nothing but site backups, with one subdirectory per site or subdomain you intend to backup. If you want to use a first-level directory, just type in its name without a trailing or leading forward slash.

Click on Save & Close to store the changed settings. Back to the Akeeba Solo / Akeeba Backup Professional main page, click on the Backup Now icon.

Ignore any warning about the Default output directory in use. We don't need to care about it; our backup archives will end up securely stored on Dropbox anyway. Just click on the big Backup Now! button and sit back. The upload to Dropbox takes place in the final step of the process, titled Finalizing the backup process. If during this stage you get an error it means that you have to go back to the configuration and lower the Part size for archive splitting setting.