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After removing dropbox from my Mac, it still appears in "login" items. Help?

After removing dropbox from my Mac, it still appears in "login" items. Help?

WonderingAboutThat
Helpful | Level 5

I am running the latest version of Ventura on Mac. After being a long time fan of dropbox, I decided to stop using it after having problems with the syncing function and the way it would move files around. Even after deleting the application, dropbox remains in "login items" underneath "Allow in the background." When starting up my mac, I get a notification message that dropbox wants to work in the background. How can I completely remove dropbox from my Mac?

 

I would appreciate any help.

 

Thank you.

17 Replies 17

Jay
Dropbox Staff

Hi @WonderingAboutThat, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

 

If you're looking to completely remove the Dropbox desktop application, try following the steps in the advanced reinstallation article

 

Up until step 4 should be the last step you need to uninstall the app entirely, anything after that is to reinstall the app.

 

Keep me updated with any progress!


Jay
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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WonderingAboutThat
Helpful | Level 5

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunately this did not work. 

After this command: 

sudo mv ~/.dropbox ~/.Trash/dropbox.old

I received an error saying "No such file or directory." 

I continue to receive this message each time I boot up the computer, even though I have it disabled in the "Allow in the background." 

Screenshot 2023-02-22 at 10.53.11 AM.png

Screenshot 2023-02-22 at 11.36.02 AM.png

 

Additionally under the "Notifications" section of the system systems, Dropbox is not listed under "Application Notifications." 

How is it possible that I am still receiving these notifications?

Does dropbox have any type of phone based customer support? I haven't been able to find a contact number.

I contacted apple support and they were not able to help me with this.

 

I would appreciate any further assistance you can offer.

Hannah
Dropbox Staff

Hey @WonderingAboutThat, thanks for this info.

 

May we reach out to you via email, so we can take a closer look into this?


Hannah
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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WonderingAboutThat
Helpful | Level 5

That would be fantastic! I would really appreciate the help. Is there a way I can send it to you privately without posting it publicly here? 

Jay
Dropbox Staff

HI @WonderingAboutThat, I've sent you an email, please could you reply to it as soon as possible!


Jay
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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renegrub
New member | Level 2

Same issue for me.   Tried uninstalling DropBox but I still show the following in my login items.  Super annoying.  How do I remove this?  

2023-03-03_07-19-29.png

WonderingAboutThat
Helpful | Level 5

I have been in contact with dropbox support and they have not been able to provide a solution. They recommend I contact apple support but I haven't had good luck with apple support recently, so I'm waiting till I'm in a patient mindset and ready to deal with a long customer support call.

 

Here are the instructions that the dropbox support offered me but when I typed in the terminal commands, I received the error message that "no file or folder exists." PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THIS WORKS FOR YOU AND IF YOU FIND A SOLUTION. Best of luck!

-----

 

If you do wish to proceed with removing the Dropbox application completely, I understand you've already attempted to do the following: 

Click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar.

  1. Click your avatar (profile picture or initials).
  2. Click Quit.
  3. Open Finder.
  4. Click Applications.
  5. Drag Dropbox to the Trash.

To also remove the Dropbox folder from your hard drive, drag your Dropbox folder to the Trash.
  
The next step I would advise in order to Delete the remaining Dropbox system folders is to do the following;

  1. Open your Finder and click Applications.
  2. Open your Terminal application.
  3. Copy and paste the following lines one at a time into the terminal. Press enter after each one.
    • Don't type commands by hand.
    • When prompted, enter your computer admin password (not your Dropbox password) and press enter.
    • Important: We assume that your Dropbox folder is in the default pathway. If you have placed your Dropbox folder in a custom location, replace all ~/Dropbox with the full location of your Dropbox folder in quotation marks. For example, if you have your Dropbox folder in the path /Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox, you need to replace ~/Dropbox from the following instructions to "/Volumes/DifferentPlace/Dropbox".
sudo chown "$USER" "$HOME"
sudo chown -R "$USER" ~/Dropbox
sudo chmod -R u+rw ~/Dropbox
sudo mv ~/.dropbox ~/.Trash/dropbox.old
sudo chmod -N ~
sudo mv /Library/DropboxHelperTools ~/DropboxHelperTools.old

 

WonderingAboutThat
Helpful | Level 5

Just a heads up, after two phone calls with apple, they weren't able to help me remove the login item. But I was getting a notification each time I started up my Mac that dropbox was adding background items and that seems to have stopped. All we did was startup in safe mode, restart the computer and then shutdown. Still probably need to try rebooting a few more times to be certain but I figured I would give this update.

 

Have you found any solutions?

Megan
Dropbox Staff

Hi @WonderingAboutThat, I hope you're doing well on your end! 

 

I was able to locate the ticket that my colleague opened for you, and it seems it has been closed by the system due to inactivity. 

 

I'd suggest that you reply back to your ticket, in order to let the agent know that you checked with Apple about this. That should create a new ticket, and you can take it from there! 


Megan
Community Moderator @ Dropbox
dropbox.com/support


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