Providers Overview

Every provider goes through the same adapter contract, so the API you write against does not change. What differs is what each provider can actually do—how its hierarchy is shaped, how it reports changes, and how hard you can push it. Build against the matrix, not against one provider’s behavior.

Capability matrix

	Box	Clio Manage	Dropbox	Google Drive	Smokeball	ShareFile
`provider` value	`box`	`clio`	`dropbox`	`gdrive`	`smokeball`	`sharefile`
Import	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Export	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Top-level containers	All Files	Matters	Account root (personal or team space)	My Drive, shared drives	Matters	Personal Folders, Shared Folders
Browse depth	Folder	Folder	Container → folder	Container → folder	Folder	Container → folder
Search	Names and contents, recursive	Document names only, recursive within a matter folder	Names (contents on some Dropbox plans), recursive	Names and contents; a folder searches its direct children	No	No
Folder search	Names	No	Names	Names	No	No
Folder contents	Yes	—	Yes	Yes	—	Yes
Folder links	Folder and shared links	—	Shared links	Folder, shared-drive and `open?id=` links	—	—
Single-file fetch	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Create folder	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Change detection	User events + reconciliation	Updated-since	Native delta	Native delta	Full relist	Full relist
Selectable collections	Documents	Documents, communications, tasks	Documents	Documents	Documents	Documents
Default scope tier	`box.readwrite`	`clio.us`	`dropbox.readwrite`	`drive`	`smokeball.us`	`sharefile`
Availability	Generally available	Generally available	Generally available	Generally available	Generally available (import)	Generally available

Import exclusions (exclude_folder_ids and exclude_file_ids) work for Clio and Google Drive only. See Exclude folders or files.

Rate budgets

Each provider has a request budget that interactive browsing and background runs share. A large sync in progress will make browsing feel slower for the same account.

Provider	Requests/min	Concurrent runs per connection
Google Drive	12,000	4
Box	900	4
Dropbox	600	1
Smokeball	300	2
ShareFile	300	4
Clio Manage	50 to start, adapting up to 400	4

Clio’s budget is tight. If you are building a Clio integration, read its guide before designing your browse UI. Dropbox runs one transfer at a time per connection because Dropbox serializes writes within an account or team space.

Token refresh behavior

You never handle tokens, but refresh behavior affects how often users are asked to reconnect. Clio, Google Drive and Dropbox issue long-lived refresh tokens. Box refresh tokens rotate after each use and expire after 60 days without use. ShareFile access tokens last 8 hours and are refreshed automatically before they expire. Handle connection.reauth_required for every provider.

Change detection and what it costs

Strategy	Provider	Behavior
Native delta	Google Drive, Dropbox	The provider reports what changed. Incremental runs are cheap.
User events	Box	Current metadata and ancestry determine subtree membership; structural changes trigger reconciliation.
Updated-since	Clio Manage	Queries by modification time. Efficient, but deletions are detected on the daily full reconcile.
Full relist	Smokeball, ShareFile	Every run lists the whole selected folder again. Simple and complete, but each run costs a full scan.

Synced links are kept current by a polling sweep. Treat “synced” as current within the hour, not real time.

Discovering availability at runtime

Do not hardcode the provider list. GET /connectors/v1/connections returns a providers array describing what is live for the calling organization:

Response fragment

{
  "providers": [
    {
      "id": "clio",
      "scope_tier": "clio.us",
      "browse_scope_tiers": ["clio.us"],
      "authorization_options": [{ "scope_tier": "clio.us", "label": "" }],
      "supports_export": true,
      "supports_create_folder": true,
      "resource_types": ["documents", "communications", "tasks"],
      "search": {
        "scopes": ["account", "folder"],
        "kinds": ["file"],
        "full_text": false,
        "folder_scope_recursive": true,
        "max_page_size": 200
      }
    },
    {
      "id": "smokeball",
      "scope_tier": "smokeball.us",
      "browse_scope_tiers": ["smokeball.us"],
      "authorization_options": [{ "scope_tier": "smokeball.us", "label": "" }],
      "supports_export": false,
      "supports_create_folder": false,
      "resource_types": ["documents"],
      "search": null
    }
  ]
}

Drive your UI from this. A provider gated for the organization returns 403 connector_scope_not_enabled at connect time—better to not show the button.

Gated and in-development providers

These providers are not generally available. Do not build against them unless Case.dev has enabled them for you.

Provider	`provider` value	Status
Microsoft OneDrive / SharePoint	`microsoft`	Gated
NetDocuments	—	In development

Guides

Box

Folder import, export, and scheduled two-way synchronization

Clio Manage

Matter and folder import, export, and selectable collections

Dropbox

Personal accounts and team spaces, import and export

Google Drive

My Drive and shared drives, import and export

Smokeball

Matter and folder import

Get Started

Platform

Resources

Providers Overview

Capability matrix

Rate budgets

Token refresh behavior

Change detection and what it costs

Discovering availability at runtime

Gated and in-development providers

Guides

Box

Clio Manage

Dropbox

Google Drive

Smokeball

​Capability matrix

​Rate budgets

​Token refresh behavior

​Change detection and what it costs

​Discovering availability at runtime

​Gated and in-development providers

​Guides

Box

Clio Manage

Dropbox

Google Drive

Smokeball

Capability matrix

Rate budgets

Token refresh behavior

Change detection and what it costs

Discovering availability at runtime

Gated and in-development providers

Guides