DropBox App not opening. Only Finder opens.

[Daniella1]

I work on a Mac. Whenever I click the Dropbox desktop app, finder opens instead of the app. Because of this I also cannot get to the preferences of the app either. Even if I right click the app on the doc, I do not get any settings. Just finder opens up and at the top bar of the finder there isn’t the dropbox icon to get preferences or change where files are synced. I would just like the app back, no more finder access. 

[aewen]

This is happening to me as well, as of this morning. I restarted my Mac and it opened the app, but once I clicked out of it, it never opened again. Let me know if you find anything out. 

[Hannah]

Hey @Daniella1 and @aewen, thanks for reaching out to us!

Can you try going to the Dropbox application's preferences and from the 'general' tab, change the 'open folders in' setting to 'Dropbox desktop app' and let me know if it works?

Thanks!

[aewen · Accepted solution]

I had to restart my computer to get the Dropbox app to open (in order to get to preferences), but I was able to change it to opening on the Desktop app, so I am hoping that worked! 

[Hannah]

Thanks for the update, that's perfect!

You should be good now.

If you need anything else, make sure to give us a shout!

[aewen]

Alright, Hannah. Round two! I am on my laptop now and even when restarting my computer, I cannot get it to open the Dropbox app. Therefore, I cannot get to Dropbox preferences to change the setting to Desktop app. Something has to be wrong if it is continuing to mess up....

[Jay]

Hi @aewen, just to clarify, do you see the Dropbox icon appear in the menu bar near the clock? What message do you get if you hover over it?

[aewen]

@Jay 

I was able to find preferences when I right-clicked my name in the menu bar icon Dropbox. Thanks for pointing me in that direction. I am usually very tech savvy and I have no idea why this was causing me so much trouble! 

[Jay]

No worries, glad to hear you were able to change the preferences. Let me know if you have any further queries in future.

Enjoy your weekend!

[dartie]

Unfortunately none of the above is working for me. I am unable to get the Dropbox app to open and NO it's not appearing in the menu bar. I have tried many things including:

- restarting the MacBook Pro (M1 chip)

- adding Dropbox to permissions in system preferences

- deleting Dropbox and downloading a new version.

I've noticed that my OneDrive is also having the same issues.