Dropbox on macOS Monterey asking for admin password on startup

[caconym]

I recently installed Dropbox on a new macOS Monterey installation. Why is it asking for my admin password on startup? Since it seems to work just fine without providing my admin password, how do I get it to stop asking me?

If the only way to get it to stop asking is to give it the password, I (a paying customer for a number of years) am done with Dropbox and will be looking for an alternative. All I want is a folder synced to the cloud, which is exactly what Dropbox was when I started using it; now it has a lot more features, which is fine, but forcing them down my throat at the expense of my computer's security is not. I will not be providing Dropbox with my admin password so that it can turn on features I don't want or need.

Please do not refer me to any documentation unless it gives a straightforward answer for how to disable this popup without giving Dropbox my admin password. Respect my time and your own, and give me a straightforward answer as to whether or not what I'm asking for is possible.

[Jay]

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

Could you attach a screenshot showing what prompt you're getting on your device?

Could you also let me know what version of the Dropbox desktop application you're running by hovering over the icon in the menu bar?

This will help me to assist further.

[caconym]

@Jayhere's a screenshot of the popup I see every time I restart my Mac:

Note that the "Username" field was initially populated with my real name (not my macOS account's username).

The Dropbox version is 134.4.4115.

Again, to be clear, I have not filled in the popup fields and clicked "OK". I leave them blank and click "Cancel" to dispel the popup on each startup. Presumably if I gave the popup what it wanted, it would go away, but at present I am not willing to do so because it doesn't appear to be a requirement for any of the Dropbox features I actually use (i.e. the core folder sync functionality).

[Jay]

Hi @caconym, is this a company-managed device? Did you install the Dropbox desktop application with admin permissions?

[caconym]

Hey @Jay, thanks for getting back to me. Responses to your questions below.

> is this a company-managed device?

No, it isn't. It's my personal machine, and isn't otherwise using any kind of "device management" features.

> Did you install the Dropbox desktop application with admin permissions?

I get the sync icons in Finder and the other extension features (contextual menus, etc.), so (according to that documentation) I guess I must have.

However, note that I am explicitly not providing Dropbox's post-install popups with my admin credentials. The main reasons for this are:

• Dropbox appears to be working just fine without me giving it these credentials. "Smart Sync" may be broken, but it's not a feature I want to use.
• The popup I'm seeing isn't the normal dialog created via the macOS permissions API to grant necessary admin permissions to applications at install time. I think it's a custom interface, generated by Dropbox itself rather than going through the OS via some permissions API, and the bar for me simply handing my admin credentials directly to an application—which may then do whatever it wants with them, including [insecurely] storing and/or transmitting them—is very high. In this case I am simply not willing to do so, because the software is working fine and dispelling an annoying popup is not a good reason to compromise security.

[Jay]

Thanks for the info, I'd recommend getting in contact with the support team directly for further assistance.

Once you get a ticket ID from the automated response, please let me know the number here so I can locate it in our system.