Dropbox in Roma
Find, read and attach your Dropbox files. Roma never writes to Dropbox.
Connect Dropbox and your operator can find a file in your Dropbox, read its text into the work at hand, and put the file on a task or a note. The connection is read-only toward Dropbox: Roma never uploads, edits, moves, shares or deletes anything there.
What the operator does with your files
Sam asks "What is in my Dropbox?" and the operator lists what is there, each entry with a link that opens it on dropbox.com in his own account. "Find my health insurance policy in Dropbox" searches by name and answers with the matches. "Read that policy PDF and tell me my policy number" reads the file and quotes the number. A PDF is read as text, and so are Word, Excel and PowerPoint files and plain text files. A very long file is read up to a limit, and the operator says when it was cut. A scanned PDF with no text in it comes back with a notice saying so, rather than as an empty file.
What the operator reads can land in your work: a figure in a task, a summary in a note, with the file linked from the item.
Attaching a Dropbox file to a task or note
"Find the lease in my Dropbox and attach it to this task" puts the file itself on the task. The operator searches, then adds the file to the body of the task: a picture shows as a picture, and a PDF or a text file lands as a chip with its name, which opens a preview. You can name the file or say where it sits, and attach up to five files in one ask. Each file can be up to 20 MB, and the kinds Roma keeps are PNG, JPEG, HEIC and WebP pictures, PDFs, plain text, Markdown, CSV and JSON. Anything else is refused by name. When one file of several fails, the rest still land and the operator says which one did not.
The same works in the conversation on a shared task or note. Mara, a member of Noor's task, asks the operator there to attach two screenshots from her Dropbox, and they land on that task for everyone in it. The others see the files in the body and nothing of Mara's Dropbox: not its links, not the rest of its contents. A task shared with you to read only takes no attachment. Attaching runs without a card. If you would rather approve each one, its row, Attach Dropbox files, under Settings → Permissions takes Ask first, as Approvals describes.
What it never does
No uploads, no edits, no moves, no sharing, no deletions, nothing created in your Dropbox. Ask for one and the operator says it can only read. The sign-in page asks for access to your whole Dropbox, because Dropbox grants access to an account as a whole, never to one part of it. Roma's own rules limit what it does with that access to the reads above and the attach, and a file is opened on Roma's server, so only its text reaches the operator. The privacy policy covers connected apps.
How to connect
Open Settings → Connections and press Dropbox. Sign in with Dropbox in the window that opens, allow what it lists, and close the page when it says Connected. The row carries a green check, and its page shows one permission group, Reading, always allowed. The iPhone's Settings → Connections carries the same row. A connection holds one Dropbox account. The general steps are in Connect an app to Roma, and the public page is /connections/dropbox.
How to disconnect
Settings → Connections, press Dropbox, then Disconnect. Access ends at once. Files already attached to your items stay where they are, and items that quote a file keep their text.
Questions people ask
Can Roma save a file to my Dropbox?
No. The connection reads only. A file the operator makes or finds goes onto a task or a note in Roma, never into your Dropbox.
Which file types can it read?
PDFs, Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, and plain text. The text is read on Roma's server up to a limit, and a scanned PDF needs a text layer to be read.
Does attaching a file change anything in Dropbox?
No. Roma downloads a copy and stores it with the item. The file in your Dropbox is not moved, shared or touched.
Can someone on a shared task see my Dropbox?
No. When you attach a file in a shared conversation, they get the file on the task and nothing else: not your Dropbox, not its links, not what else is in it.