Sync content from a cloud folder to Azure App Service

This article shows you how to sync your content to Azure App Service from Dropbox and OneDrive.

With the content sync approach, your work with your app code and content in a designated cloud folder to make sure it's in a ready-to-deploy state, and then sync to App Service with the click of a button.

Because of underlying differences in the APIs, OneDrive for Business is not supported at this time.

Note

The Development Center (Classic) page in the Azure portal, which is the old deployment experience, will be deprecated in March, 2021. This change will not affect any existing deployment settings in your app, and you can continue to manage app deployment in the Deployment Center page.

Enable content sync deployment

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to the management page for your App Service app.

2. From the left menu, click Deployment Center > Settings.

3. In Source, select OneDrive or Dropbox.

4. Click Authorize and follow the authorization prompts.

   

   You only need to authorize with OneDrive or Dropbox once for your Azure account. To authorize a different OneDrive or Dropbox account for an app, click Change account.

5. In Folder, select the folder to synchronize. This folder is created under the following designated content path in OneDrive or Dropbox.

   • OneDrive: Apps\Azure Web Apps
   • Dropbox: Apps\Azure

6. Click Save.

Synchronize content

Azure portal

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to the management page for your App Service app.

2. From the left menu, click Deployment Center > Redeploy/Sync.

   

3. Click OK to confirm the sync.

Azure CLI

Start a sync by running the following command and replacing <group-name> and <app-name>:

az webapp deployment source sync --resource-group <group-name> --name <app-name>

Azure PowerShell

Start a sync by running the following command and replacing <group-name> and <app-name>:

Invoke-AzureRmResourceAction -ResourceGroupName <group-name> -ResourceType Microsoft.Web/sites -ResourceName <app-name> -Action sync -ApiVersion 2019-08-01 -Force –Verbose

Disable content sync deployment

1. In the Azure portal, navigate to the management page for your App Service app.

2. From the left menu, click Deployment Center > Settings > Disconnect.

   

What happens to my app during deployment?

All the officially supported deployment methods make changes to the files in the /home/site/wwwroot folder of your app. These files are used to run your app. So the deployment can fail because of locked files. The app might also behave unpredictably during deployment because the files aren't all updated at the same time. This behavior is undesirable for a customer-facing app. There are a few ways to avoid these issues:

• Run your app directly from the ZIP package, without unpacking it.
• Stop your app or enable offline mode for it during deployment. For more information, see Deal with locked files during deployment.
• Deploy to a staging slot with auto swap turned on.

OneDrive and Dropbox integration retirements

On September 30th, 2023 the integrations for Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox for Azure App Service and Azure Functions will be retired. If you are using OneDrive or Dropbox, you should disable content sync deployments from OneDrive and Dropbox. Then, you can set up deployments from any of the following alternatives

• GitHub Actions
• Azure DevOps Pipelines
• Azure CLI
• VS Code
• Local Git Repository

Next steps

Deploy from local Git repo