Child Item

Is it possible to rename the Dropbox folder to Dropbox instead of Dropbox (Personal)?

I want to get rid of (Personal) in my dropbox root folder now that I've stopped using Dropbox business. "Jane" gives a great desription of how to change it on my mac, on this page: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Installation-and-desktop-app/undo-changed-folder-name/td-p/220463

BUT, when I try the first step of deleting the link to my computer, it asks me "Delete files from my personal Dropbox the next time this computer comes online." and I don't know if I'm supposed to check this, or not supposed to check this. And, it won't let me "REPLY" directly to Jane.

Can anyone help?

I want to keep all my files and relink them after I get the root folder name changed -- all I want to do is change the root folder name, I don't want to lose any files.

Find more posts tagged with

Delete

Sync

Dropbox Business

Dislike

Closed - Partially Delivered

Accepted answers

Jay

Hi there, the steps there are for a different reason.

The (Personal) part of the name will only disappear if you unpair your personal account from the team account.

If it’s still connected to a team account, then that tag will remain there and can’t be removed otherwise.

After you’ve disconnected the accounts, you can reboot your computer and the folder should be automatically renamed.

Let me know how it goes!

All comments

Jay

Hi there, the steps there are for a different reason.

The (Personal) part of the name will only disappear if you unpair your personal account from the team account.

If it’s still connected to a team account, then that tag will remain there and can’t be removed otherwise.

After you’ve disconnected the accounts, you can reboot your computer and the folder should be automatically renamed.

Let me know how it goes!

Padraigincanada

OMG, thank you so much! This solved it!

nicholas2

What if I deleted the business account already, so I cannot disconnect my personal account from the already non-existent business account?

Jay

Hi Nicholas, if this is the case, and you’ve already rebooted your machine completely, then you might need to try an advanced reinstall of the app and prior to installing, delete the local Dropbox folder.

However, you can copy those files to another folder on your machine and later copy them back into your Dropbox folder, similar to the following steps here, to prevent having to re-download them again from scratch.

Let me know if this works!

SaturdayScience

Why can't Dropbox team develop a simple 'rename' function? Why do you force root folder names upon us, in particular with sapces. With spaces in your imposed folder names Dropbox is incompatible with plenty of software. All for the sake of a simple "F2" folder rename function.

Mr_and_Mrs_D

I used to be on Windows 7 and my dropbox folder was named Dropbox despite I had linked my work account - now on windows 10 it is named Dropbox (Personal). Apart from breaking my existing shortcuts, adding a space and other 10 characters in the path it also seems ugly. Can't I really _not_ get rid of this "Personal" and name it just Dropbox?

Fiona

Hi @Mr_and_Mrs_D,

If the desktop application hosts two accounts of yours, one personal and one business, there is no way to remove the "Personal". However, if you choose to unpair the 2 accounts and you would keep the personal only synced to your desktop app, then it would switch back to just "Dropbox."

I understand this is not a solution to what you need. I am only explaining how this currently works since I have no solution to offer.

Thank you for your participation and feedback.

Mr_and_Mrs_D

Hi @Fiona ,

It used to work on windows 7 however (till yesterday) - I had managed to get rid of that "personal" and have both my accounts synced, I just don't remember how I did it (a year ago). Can I sync outside of the dropbox app?

Thanks

Fiona

So happy you found a workaround for this.

Currently Dropbox can only sync only inside Dropbox. Symlinks do not operate with Dropbox the same way as before. They can only work if the file is in Dropbox and the point to a location outside Dropbox. Please read about this here.

Feel free to get back t me wit any other questions!

Здравко

Hi @Mr_and_Mrs_D,

In many cases, depending what exactly you need really, a workaround could be link/alias to "Dropbox (Personal)" folder. You can name it as you like, including just "Dropbox", and... the life is back as it was.

Hope this gives an alternative.

Bigalk

I had a dropbox (personal) & (Myfamily). The Myfamily userid has been compromised &I deleted it. How can i remove personal from te dropbox name? I don't have a business accout and am not sure how I ended up with the 2 dropboxes in te first place.

Thanks

Jay

Hi @Bigalk, thanks for posting today!

If you want to rename the personal Dropbox folder, you’ll need to unlink the personal and work accounts (the work account being the Myfamily account).

You can unlink them using the steps here. Afterwards, a reboot of the computer would help.

Let me know how it goes!

Bigalk

Jay,

Thanks for your help. I was unable to get rid of the Dropbox (Personal) . The (Myfamily) is not connected and I was able to remove all data from it and remove it from my PC. My main concern was my ID on the Dropbox (Myfamily) was hacked and I want to make sure that there is no relationship between the 2 IDs. I don't know if my other ID still has a dropbox.

Thanks,

Jay

Thanks for the info. Since they would be under separate emails, there isn't a way to access the personal account from the other account.

If you have any shared folders on your account that are shared with the MyFamily account, remove them as a member so that changes won't be made to files in those folder.

Hope this helps!

silverst

Adding my voice to the chorus of customers crying out for a Rename Dropbox feature. Unbelievable that after 5 years of Dropbox Teams, this hasn't been addressed. It must be so frustrating to all the coders working for Dropbox, using their boxes for code...

Bigalk

I think I got rid of personal on my PC, but the online Dropbox still says personal.
Now Everytime I star up my PCI get asked if Dropbox can make changes..like I just installed it. I may have to give up my 12G of space and use Google Drive instead!

Jay

Hi @Bigalk, thanks for getting back to me. The Dropbox site would still show your account as personal on this page, and on the bottom left of the page, just to distinguish it from a Business plan.

It shouldn't show up on your PC any more provided it was unpaired from your work plan.

If it's not showing there, could you forward a screenshot showing where you're seeing this info? Thanks!

Bigalk

Thanks Jay! That's what I have now. Dropbox folder on PC ... Dropbox personal when I click on dropbox Icon and then click my id on upper right corner. Dropbox personal also appears as you said in te lower left on dropbox .com

I have a new issue since I worked on this.... now everytime I start my PC I get asked if I want dropbox app to make changes to this device..... as if I am installing it. If I say No dropbox doesn't start. I can start it later but It asks the same question.

Jay

What OS are you running on that machine? Is it a company-maintained device (i.e. with an IT admin), or a personal machine?

Bigalk

Hi Jay,

I am running Windows 10 Home. It is my personal privatemachine. It is not connected to a compamy in any way.

Thanks, Al

Jay

If you're not on a Dropbox Basic plan with more than 3 devices connected, could you try an advanced reinstall of the app using the steps in this link.

Bigalk

Hi Jay,

Thanks for all your help! I made several attempts uninstalling and reinstalling Dropbox both as admin and not to no avail. I did manage to end up trying to backup all my files through the BETA during install. What a mess! I had way too much data. It seems you can't use the rewind option unless you are a business account, which I am not. Manually deleting the data from dropbox would also delete it from the computer.

I had copied all my dropbox data before I started with all this so I was able to recover everything and reset my directory links.

It took some doing but I was able to empty my Dropbox.

My status is a dropbox with nothing in it and I have to manually start it if I want to use it.

Thanks again,

survivestyle

Hello- I followed these instructions and the (Personal) is still appended to my Dropbox directory. Please advise. I really don't want to spend the time waiting for dropbox to download all my cloud sync files, move the files the directory, rename it the directory, move all the files back, and wait for it to sync again.

Здравко

Hi @survivestyle,

Probably you haven't unlinked the application from your account in a proper way. The reinstall can NOT break the application link; it's not part of the installation, but part of the configuration. One alternative is wipe out the entire configuration. If you use "Selective Sync" or other local settings, specific for the device, keep them on safe (screenshot, for example), so gonna be possible restore at the end. Execute on your Mac following in terminal:

rm -rf ~/.dropbox

Now, it's like you have never installed Dropbox application (more precise - like you just have installed it, but not used yet). Run the application, link it to your account, and put the syncing on pause. Hopefully, you have now Dropbox folder named just "Dropbox" in process of syncing. To speed up the sync, move/copy your old content and release the sync. Will need some time to reindex and ... done! 😉

If you prefer resync everything anew, skip the pausing-releasing the sync and copying the old content; just let it sync.

Hope this can help you.