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Under the hood: Architecture overview

Dropbox is designed with multiple layers of protection, including secure data transfer, encryption, network configuration, and application-level controls distributed across a scalable, secure infrastructure.

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File infrastructure

Dropbox users can access files and folders at any time from a number of interfaces, including the desktop, web, and mobile clients, or through third-party applications connected to Dropbox. Each has security settings and features that process and protect user data while ensuring ease of access. All of these clients connect to secure servers to provide access to files, allow file sharing with others, and update linked devices when files are added, changed, or deleted.

Dropbox distributed file infrastructure

Our file infrastructure is comprised of the following components:

Dropbox Paper infrastructure

Dropbox users can access Paper docs at any time from the web and mobile clients, or through third-party applications connected to the Dropbox Paper application. All of these clients connect to secure servers to provide access to Paper docs, allow doc sharing with others, and update linked devices when docs are added, changed, or deleted.

Dropbox Paper distributed file infrastructure

Dropbox Paper infrastructure is comprised of the following components: