Stuck on "Starting": Migration of files that never were uploaded to DB, so can't do a reinstall

the major reinstall only works if you know all the files are already in dropbox. For me, I have files that never made it to dropbox online and I can't recount every file that was created. as i am upgrading from an old MAC iOS that went dormant when dropbox moved on. How do we do a complete virgin reinstall and sync the files that missed the boat and are still in the dropbox file structure? A reinstall of dropbox does not work and again I can not use the terminal to delete the dropbox folders.