Historical work-around for Dropbox

Between October 2017 and July 2019 we relied on a somewhat hacky work-around for using Dropbox charts offline. This is no longer necessary. There’s a proper offline mode built into Orpheus – more info here.

This method still works and it’s perfectly safe to continue using it if you wish to do so. But for new users, I recommend using the in-built offline mode which makes life much easier.

Historical (clever but slightly hacky) way to use Dropbox’s own offline mode

Discovered by Mario Neundlinger, a user and fan of Orpheus (thanks Mario, you’re a rockstar!)

1) Open the Dropbox app on your device and navigate to your Dropbox folder where your sheet music is stored

2) Enable “Available Offline” for this folder (internet access is required at this point)

3) Now all charts within this Dropbox folder are stored in a cache folder somewhere secret on your device

4) Find the filepath to the cache folder on your device. This can be achieved with the help of a file manager app such as EX File Explorer. The filepath will look something like this /sdcard/Android/data/com.dropbox.android/files/name-of-your-folder  

5) Back in Orpheus create a new (local) music folder in Orpheus with the cache folder filepath from (4) above

6) You’re done ?

Once set up as above, Dropbox takes care of keeping this folder in sync. If you have any sync issues simply open the Dropbox app and “refresh” the list. This will force Dropbox to update the offline version.

A huge thank you to Mario. Legend.

Maeve Lander is a software developer by day, trumpeter and arranger by night. She created Orpheus ~8 years ago, when Android was first born. It has gone through iteration over the years, but has always held true to the original vision; a minimalist sheet music reader that just does one thing, really well.