Automatic Backup to Dropbox using RSS and IFTTT

Looking for an efficient way to backup your files to Dropbox using RSS? Using a combination of IFTTT, RSS and Offcloud’s Web-based downloader – it is now possible. In this tutorial, we will see how to download / backup to Dropbox via RSS with the help of IFTTT.

You will need to set up an account with IFTTT and Offcloud for this tutorial.

Login to your Offcloud account and navigate to Account tab on the menu. Click on Remote accounts on the Account page to access your third party storage accounts. (1)

Click on Add new remote account, and in the resulting screen – choose Dropbox as Account Type and click on Authenticate. (2/3)

You will be redirected to Dropbox now for granting permissions. Click on Allow to granting the permission to OffCloud. Note: These permissions only allow OffCloud to access its own folder named “OffCloud.com” inside the Apps folder in your Dropbox. (4)

Now that we have connected your Google Drive to Offcloud – let’s set up your IFTTT account to connect with OffCloud.

Login to your IFTTT account and head over to the My Applets page. Click on New Applet to create a new applet. (5)

In the new applet screen, we have to set up the “this” part. Click on “this” to proceed further. (6)

You will see services being listed here. Choose RSS Feed from this list. (7)

On the RSS Feed page, choose New Feed Item as the trigger. (8)

Post the Feed URL in the box and Create trigger. (9)

Now click on the “that” part to proceed further. (10)

In the next page, type webhooks to select webhooks. Click on webhooks to proceed to next screen. (11)

Click on Make a new request to proceed to next screen. (12)

On this page, enter this URL – https://offcloud.com/api/remote/download/?apikey=yourapikey&option=youraccount&url={{EntryContent}}. Select the method as “GET”. Click on Create Action to proceed further. (13)

Note : Replace yourapikey with your api key. You can find this at https://offcloud.com/#/remote and click on the RSS icon at the top right.

For your account, choose the account name you gave for your Dropbox in Step #3, which is usually your email id connected with the Dropbox account.

Review and finish the trigger by clicking on Finish. (14)

And done! Essentially what we did in this tutorial is tell IFTTT to call Offcloud every time there is a new item in your RSS. Once there is a new item in RSS, IFTTT calls Offcloud, which in turn processes the link and downloads it to your Dropbox account. Once downloaded, you will find your files in the Apps > Offcloud.com.