Abstract: The present disclosure relates to systems, non-transitory computer-readable media, and methods for retrieving digital content from external applications through a software connection. In some embodiments, the disclosed systems identify a software connector comprising a plurality of federated connections linking a content management system and an external application, the plurality of federated connections associated with respective user accounts of the content management system and connecting the respective user accounts to the external application through the software connector. The disclosed systems, use a sync engine to crawl the plurality of federated connections and generate a content graph comprising nodes representing digital content from the external application to sync with the content management system. The disclosed systems request, by the sync engine using the content graph, the digital content from the external application to the content management system through the software connector.