Single Dropbox Account on Mac with Two Users

[Guy J.]

My wife and I have a single shared dropbox account. On our mac at home we have two separate user accounts. I've tried to set up the Dropbox folder that it's only stored once on the Mac and both user accounts on the Mac can read and write to it such that as we move between the two user accounts we have a common dropbox folder and each file only exists once.
When I install it under my profile it works fine but then when I open under her profile it wants to set up another dropbox folder. I then try and force it to use the folder under my user (which I've given her read and write access to) but it does not allow it.
Has anyone else solved this?
All help is welcome.
Thanks

[DaveC2]

I use windows machines, and just performed this using two user accounts, as I dont know the mac permission system I can only suggest that you move the DROPBOX folder to a common file location that ALL users have open access to, in that way you can be ensured it is not a file access problem.

WARNING : DO NOT EMPLOY SELECTIVE SYNC FUNCTIONS if this setup is used. If you do you will loose the files from the cloud, when user1 selective syncs files off the machine, then user2 comes online user2's DB app thinks those files were erased, as it knows nothing about user1s selective sync settings.

[Tim J.1]

I share this question. I have tried Dave's method, but as you have found the DropBox app prevents the second user from accessing the existing folder location (DropBox folder already exists).

Anyone from DropBox willing the comment on this?

[DaveC2]

There is a file called .dropbox that holds an unique number for the account, if this is removed the app rejects the folder.

However if you simply cant get it to use the folder, then RENAME the original dropbox folder, and then install it.
Now you will have DROPBOX_OLD and DROPBOX, since both apps will look at DROPBOX you can removed the _OLD one.

[Guy J.]

Thanks Dave, I cannot get your solution to work. Have you done this on a Mac?
Anyone else who can help?

[DaveC2]

PC, MAC and a Nix system.
.
Cavet : Mac and nix were both on v2.x dropbox installs.

[Larry G.23]

<bump> Has anyone solved this? I'm in the same situation here.

[Jesse j.]

Ya, I'm looking for an answer to this too. Anyone find a solution?

[Papa A.]

I am using two Mac systems 10.6.8 and 10.10.5 and have all my data on an internal partition. I managed to get google drive to just point and it is fine

but Dropbox is saying "There is another Dropbox file system in that folder." and will not allow it to be chosen. Apparently identical folders, holding identical data is too much for Dropbox to understand.

Now I did this starting in Dropbox in 10.10.5, so maybe go in the opposite direction?

start with 10.6.8 and then do 10.10.5?

Worried about losing the data. Though I am sure I have it on other computers, this folder is shared across two computers, two running 10.6.8 and one of those with a 10.10.5 partition.

I want as much of the data kept in a data partition not in the operating system partition.

If anyone knows how to do this or has done it I would love a solution

Doc

[rgrainger]

Bump: Looking for the same solution here.

Single Dropbox account, two OS users — don't need redundant data. 

We need a Level 2 ...

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