Dropbox file sourcing

Here’s how to store your videos on Dropbox and deliver them via SmartVideo.

Dropbox changed its link format. Old links ending in ?dl=1 no longer work for videos not yet added to SmartVideo — use the current Dropbox share-link format instead, which SmartVideo now supports. Videos already added with a ?dl=1 link keep working. To get the current link: open the file in Dropbox, click the … (ellipsis) menu, and choose Copy link.

If you are using our WordPress plugin:

1. Upload your video to Dropbox.

2. Click the ellipsis and click Copy link.

3. Paste the copied URL into the Video Url field of the SmartVideo widget:

And that’s it!

If you are not using our WordPress plugin

1. Copy the SmartVideo tag below and paste it where you wish to embed the video.

<smartvideo src="https://your-video.example.com/file.mp4" width="1280" height="720" class="swarm-fluid" controls> </smartvideo>

2. Back on Dropbox, click the ellipsis and click Copy link.

3. Then, paste the Dropbox link into the SmartVideo HTML tag, replacing the https://your-video.example.com/file.mp4 placeholder.

Your video is now ready to be embedded on your site and delivered by SmartVideo!

Do I need to keep the file in Dropbox?

No. When you add a Dropbox link to SmartVideo, we download that file once, encode it into our optimized renditions, and store and serve those copies from our own CDN. Once processing finishes and the video plays on your site, SmartVideo no longer reads from your Dropbox link — so moving, renaming, or deleting the original in Dropbox won’t stop your video from playing.

That said, we only keep the delivery-ready (encoded) version, not a byte-for-byte copy of your master file. Keep your original somewhere you control in case you ever need to re-edit or re-upload it. See Video backup best practices for why and how.

One caveat: the video has to fully finish processing before the Dropbox file is safe to remove. Encoding takes roughly 2-3x the length of the video. If the video still isn’t showing, give it time to process and check Video not playing? Troubleshooting guide — common causes are still-processing, a CDN-key mismatch, or a Content-Security-Policy that needs *.swarmcdn.com *.swarmify.com blob: added.

Item of note: Unfortunately, Dropbox doesn’t support using images hosted on Dropbox for manually setting a Thumbnail/Poster image.

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