How to use Git and Dropbox together? [closed]

Answer 1

I didn't want to put all my projects under one Git repository, nor did I want to go in and run this code for every single project, so I made a Bash script that will automate the process. You can use it on one or multiple directories - so it can do the code in this post for you or it can do it on multiple projects at once.

#!/bin/sh
# Script by Eli Delventhal
# Creates Git projects for file folders by making the origin Dropbox. You will need to install Dropbox for this to work.

# Not enough parameters, show help.
if [ $# -lt 1 ] ; then

cat<<HELP
projects_to_git.sh -- Takes a project folder and creates a Git repository for it on Dropbox

USAGE:
    ./projects_to_git.sh file1 file2 ..

EXAMPLES:
    ./projects_to_git.sh path/to/MyProjectDir
        Creates a git project called MyProjectDir on Dropbox

    ./projects_to_git.sh path/to/workspace/*
        Creates a git project on Dropbox for every folder contained within the workspace directory, where the project name matches the folder name

HELP
    exit 0
fi

# We have enough parameters, so let's actually do this thing.

START_DIR=$(pwd)

# Make sure we have a connection to Dropbox
cd ~
if [ -s 'Dropbox' ] ; then
    echo "Found Dropbox directory."
    cd Dropbox
    if [ -s 'git' ] ; then
        echo "    Dropbox Git directory found."
    else
        echo "    Dropbox Git directory created."
        mkdir git
    fi
else
    echo "You do not have a Dropbox folder at ~/Dropbox! Install Dropbox. Aborting..."
    exit 0
fi

# Process all directories matching the passed parameters.
echo "Starting processing for all files..."
for PROJ in $*
do
    if [ -d $PROJ ] ; then
        PROJNAME=$(basename $PROJ)
        echo "  Processing $PROJNAME..."

        # Enable Git with this project.
        cd $PROJ
        if [ -s '.git' ] ; then
            echo "    $PROJNAME is already a Git repository, ignoring..."
        else
            echo "    Initializing Git for $PROJNAME..."
            git init -q
            git add .
            git commit -m "Initial creation of project." -q

            # Make the origin Dropbox.

            cd ~/Dropbox/git
            if [ -s $PROJNAME ] ; then
                echo "    Warning! $PROJNAME already exists in Git! Ignoring..."
            else
                echo "    Putting $PROJNAME project on Dropbox..."
                mkdir $PROJNAME
                cd $PROJNAME
                git init -q --bare
            fi

            # Link the project to the origin
            echo "    Copying local $PROJNAME to Dropbox..."
            cd $PROJ
            git remote add origin "~/Dropbox/git/$PROJNAME"
            git push -q origin master
            git branch --set-upstream master origin/master
        fi
    fi
done

echo "Done processing all files."
cd $START_DIR

Answer 2

On MacOS you may also just stop Dropbox, make your changes and then relaunch Dropbox. I am using the following combination and am quite happy with it:

In both (your local git managed project directory and your remote git repository located on Dropbox) run the following command to disable auto-packing (which is the main problem with dropbox syncing)

git config --global gc.auto 0

Then from time to time, compress the repositories with dropbox disabled. For example I do the following in my bash-build-script whenever I make new releases of my apps.

osascript -e "tell application \"Dropbox\" to quit"

# Compress local
git gc --prune=now; git repack -a -d

# Compress remote
REPOS_DIR_REMOTE=`git remote get-url --push origin`
cd "${REPOS_DIR_REMOTE}"
git gc --prune=now; git repack -a -d

osascript -e "tell application \"Dropbox\" to launch"
osascript -e "display notification with title \"Compress Done\""

Answer 3

Without using third-party integration tools, I could enhance the condition a bit and use DropBox and other similar cloud disk services such as SpiderOak with Git.

The goal is to avoid the synchronization in the middle of these files modifications, as it can upload a partial state and will then download it back, completely corrupting your git state.

To avoid this issue, I did:

1. Bundle my git index in one file using git bundle create my_repo.git --all.
2. Set a delay for the file monitoring, eg 5 minutes, instead of instantaneous. This reduces the chances DropBox synchronizes a partial state in the middle of a change. It also helps greatly when modifying files on the cloud disk on-the-fly (such as with instantaneous saving note-taking apps).

It's not perfect as there is no guarantee it won't mess up the git state again, but it helps and for the moment I did not get any issue.

Answer 4

It is now 2015, and as of three days ago, a new tool based on Dropbox API v2 has been created to safely use git on Dropbox. It works against the API rather than using the desktop client, and correctly handles multiple simultaneous pushes to a repository hosted in a shared folder.

Once configured, it allows one to set up a git remote exactly like any other git remote.

git clone "dropbox::/path/to/repo"
git remote add origin "dropbox::/path/to/repo"

Answer 5

I store my non-Github repo's on Dropbox. One caveat I ran into was syncing after a reinstall. Dropbox will download the smallest files first before moving to the larger ones. Not an issue if you start at night and come back after the weekend :-)

My thread - http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=29984&replies=6

Answer 6

I love the answer by Dan McNevin! I'm using Git and Dropbox together too now, and I'm using several aliases in my .bash_profile so my workflow looks like this:

~/project $ git init
~/project $ git add .
~/project $ gcam "first commit"
~/project $ git-dropbox

These are my aliases:

alias gcam='git commit -a -m'
alias gpom='git push origin master'
alias gra='git remote add origin'
alias git-dropbox='TMPGP=~/Dropbox/git/$(pwd | awk -F/ '\''{print $NF}'\'').git;mkdir -p $TMPGP && (cd $TMPGP; git init --bare) && gra $TMPGP && gpom'