Mac changed the name of my Mac user account and home folder, now Dropbox no longer functions.

[DolphinU1]

Dropbox will not open after changing the Mac OS 14 home folder name & user account in OS 14.
I changed the name of my Mac user account & home folder following Apple's instructions. Everything works perfectly except for Dropbox.
I get the message that it needs to change permissions for the folder, which is the old home folder name. If I put in my user name & password I get another message saying "Couldn't start Dropbox". I have uninstalled, reinstalled but always the same. How can I fix this?

I have a Mac Studio with OS 14

Thanks

[Jay]

Hi @DolphinU1, thanks for messaging the Community!

Could you try these steps to see if they help?

Keep me posted!

[DolphinU1]

Hello Jay,

Thank you for getting back to me. I recommend Dropbox to everyone primarily because of the wonderful support you folks give.

Let me give you a little background. This might help you understand me and customers like me. Every time I get a new Mac I feel like I have to change the name of the user account in Home folder. I do this in order to identify back ups and see things on my net work correctly.  I know that some people will name their computer "Mary's computer" and when they get a new Mac, they will continue with that name. I will often repurpose a computer and so I give it names that help me identify what it actually is. For example, I will use "2019 MacPro" or "2020MackStudio" as home folder names.  If there's a better way, no one has been able to explain it to me. 

Apple provides a slightly tricky method of changing all of this. The method I went through with dropbox was more difficult.

Before I received an answer from the Dropbox support team, I did find a solution online which was different. I'd like to show it to you below.  I suspect, I may have done some steps that were not necessary. Here it is:

Uninstall Dropbox:
• Open your Finder.
• Click Applications.
• Locate the Dropbox app and drag and drop it to the Trash. Or, right-click the Dropbox app icon and select Move to Trash.
When the uninstall finishes, restart your computer.
Delete the remaining Dropbox system folders.
• Open your Finder.
•  Click Applications.
• Open your Terminal application. 
◦ The Terminal pathway on updated macOS computers is /Applications/Terminal.app

Note: If you can’t find the Terminal app, check the Utilities folder.
• Copy and paste the following lines one at a time into the Terminal. Press enter on your keyboard after each one.
◦ Don't type commands by hand.
◦ When prompted, enter your computer admin password (not your Dropbox password) and press enter on your keyboard.

(This is assuming 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

Quit Terminal.

Get the latest version of the Dropbox desktop app

Does my need to change the Home folder name with a new computer make sense to you? Does the new location for the Dropbox folder eliminate this work when the home folders name is changed again?

Thanks!!

Dan