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Menu bar icon not appearing

I used to be a Basic member but am now a member of a Family Plan. I am not able to get the Dropbox icon on my menu bar on a new Mac - Monterey 12.01. I have quit and trashed the application and have reinstalled a couple of times, but nothing. I can't for the life of me get the icon on my Menu Bar. Does the Menu Bar have a space limitation? I would think not. Any help out there?

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Jay

Hi @skiblues, thanks for joining the Community.

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?

Keep me updated with any progress!

Mod note: edited to update link in post. [last updated 2023]

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Jay

Mod note: edited to update link in post. [last updated 2023]

skiblues

Jay - thanks for getting back to me. So I found out that we are limited to the number of icons in the Menu Bar. I deleted one that I did not need and then the Dropbox icon showed up. So it turned out to be just a space issue on the Menu Bar. I am now all good.

Thanks again.

Mark Siegel

Since upgrading from Mac OS Mojave on an old MacBook to Monterey on a new MacBook Pro 14, the Dropbox icon no longer appears on my menu bar. I re-downloaded and installed the Dropbox desktop app. That didn't help. And when I try to open the Dropbox app, either from my Applications folder or from the Control Panel, it only opens my Dropbox folder of all my files.

What is going on?

Megan

Hi @Mark Siegel, I'd be happy to look into this for you!

I've merged your post into this thread because it's similar to what the OP mentioned.

Can you take a look at what has already been suggested previously and let me know if you have any questions?

Thanks a bunch!

Mister Boh

I have exactly the same issue!

Mark Siegel

Thanks to everyone for all the replies. As @skiblues mentioned, I also learned that Monterey allows only a limited number of icons on the menu bar. I just updated to the latest Monterey (Version 12.3) and the issue is the same.

I did discover what I thought was another option: If you open a Finder window, under the View dropdown menu, you'll see "Customize Toolbar...". That opens a window that gives you the variety of icons, including Dropbox, that you can simply drag to the toolbar... not the top toolbar, but the toolbar of the Finder windows. That looked promising, but unfortunately, clicking on that icon only opens my local Dropbox folder, not the former desktop app that included the link to my Dropbox files on the web.

My workaround solution: I'm not using the desktop app. I simply added my Dropbox Files url to my top Favorites bar on my browsers. A one-click solution that takes me directly to my files.

Mark Siegel

I found the solution!

Since the new MacBook Pros (I have a 2021, running OS Monterey) have limited room on the menu bar, I thought maybe if I took of some apps that I don't really need, it would allow room for ones I do -- like Dropbox.

First I went to my Settings, selected "Dock & Menu Bar", and click through the list of applications. Each one will have a
"Show in Menu Bar" box to check or un-check. I unchecked a few that I don't use often enough to need them in the Menu Bar.

But... it still wasn't enough. One icon up there puzzled me: One that looks like an old telephone handset, called "Modem". I have no modem hardware or software connected, so it had no use. But that Modem was not listed in the "Dock & Menu Bar" settings. So... how to get rid of it?

I did a Google search and was directed to an Apple Community discussion that had the answer:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3330974

The answer is simple:

"Hold down the command key and drag it out of the menu bar."

Which I did. And magically a couple of new icons appeared that used to be on my old Menu Bar... including DropBox! And it works perfectly, just like the old one.

Mark Siegel

Megan: I just posted a reply in this thread that I found the solution!

I'm not sure if everyone who had the same problem will see it in the thread, so I'm sending this to you as Moderator to make sure it's visible to everyone. This was my post:

I found the solution!

Since the new MacBook Pros (I have a 2021, running OS Monterey) have limited room on the menu bar, I thought maybe if I took off some apps that I don't really need, it would allow room for ones I do -- like Dropbox.

First I went to my Settings, selected "Dock & Menu Bar", and clicked through the list of applications. Each has a "Show in Menu Bar" box to check or un-check. I unchecked a few that I don't use often enough to need them in the Menu Bar.

I did a Google search and was directed to an Apple Community discussion that had the answer:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3330974

The answer is simple:

"Hold down the command key and drag it out of the menu bar."

Which I did. And magically a couple of new icons appeared that used to be on my old Menu Bar... including DropBox! And it works perfectly, just like the old one.

reggoboy

I'm a paying customer of the 3TB tier of Dropbox. I have been going back and forth with Dropbox support for nearly a month, and they are unable to get my Dropbox icon back in my menu bar. It's exasperating. I have a ton of free menu-bar space.

Hannah

Hey @reggoboy, sorry to see you're having trouble with this.

Can you please give us the ticket number for your communication with our support team, so we can look it up in our system?

Studio_BW

I am on Dropbox Plus plan. Had 2 iMacs and 1 MBP today drop their sync today Jun 16th 2023: Dropbox icon disappeared from menu bars on all computers and sync stopped. Did the advanced re-install, on the newest (MBP, Monterey) the app crashed after indexing for 10mins. Advanced re-install seems to install an earlier version than DB website. Cleared all previous data with Terminal using DB helpdesk instructions.

Still not working, and the previous offered solution did not solve anything. Dropbox on Activity Monitor "not responding" and not present on Mac OS X Monterey menu bar.

Mark Siegel

I don't know if this will help your problem with crashing and not syncing, but I posted a solution a while ago (which I can't locate now) for the Dropbox icon disappearing from my menu bar after I upgraded to a newer MacBook Pro and to OS Monterey for the first time:

Apparently, because of menu bar space lost due to the top-center black area (for the camera), there's limited space for menu bar icons. I finally tried removing icons for apps I didn't really need in the menu bar, and as soon as there was enough space my Dropbox icon suddenly appeared, and was fully functional. I've since upgraded my Mac to OS 13 Ventura, and the Dropbox icon is still there and remains functional (just tested it).

I do find that if I launch certain apps which are marked to appear on the menu bar, that icon will appear, but others (sometimes Dropbox) will temporarily disappear to allow space. But as soon as I quit that app, the missing icon(s) will return.

If you can get the Dropbox icon to reappear by removing others but it still doesn't solve the connecting/syncing problem... sorry but that's beyond my limited knowledge.

Megan

Hi @Studio_BW, sorry to hear about that!

Just wanted to check in with you, and ask if you're still facing the same issue.

Do you get any specific errors when you start-up the app? If so, feel free to share them with us here. You can send the full .txt file back to me.

If it's a different kind of error, a screenshot would be most helpful.

One last thing: is the error happening every time you launch the app or only sometimes?

Keep me posted!

reggoboy

" because of menu bar space lost due to the top-center black area (for the camera), there's limited space for menu bar icons. I finally tried removing icons for apps I didn't really need in the menu bar, and as soon as there was enough space my Dropbox icon suddenly appeared, and was fully functional."

Thanks, this was the fix 🙂

The reason I didn't come to this conclusion sooner was because I had a solid 2+ inches of empty menu bar space between the "notch" and the first visible menu bar icon to its right. That would have been plenty of space to fit a whole bunch of menu bar icons.

The culprit was MenuMeters. I forgot I had it installed, since it never showed up. But with 8 cpu cores and a bunch of other things displayed, it probably required at least 1/3 of my entire screen width. And it seems that since it couldn't display ALL of it, it displayed NONE of it. And worse, since MenuMeters apparently had some precedence over Dropbox, Dropbox never displayed at all. Turning ALL MenuMeters options off finally revealed the Dropbox icon.

Turning select (smaller; ie, non-CPU) MenuMeters back on now shows them to the left of Dropbox. Apparently they "stack to the left" in the order that they are enabled.

Thanks.

normloomer

I followed all the steps in the Advanced Reinstall, but the Dropbox icon still does not appear in my menu bar.

A little background: I replaced my 2017 MacBook Air with a 2023 M2 MacBook Air. I have two Dropbox accounts, and my preferred one had been connected to the Dropbox app. I used Migration Assistant to copy the contents of the old MBA to the new one. Somehow, in the process, the connection to the preferred account was lost, and the Dropbox app connected to my secondary account.

According to what I have read, the solution is simple: Click on the Dropbox icon in the menu bar and select the option to change accounts. But ah, there's the rub. The Dropbox icon does not appear in the menu bar. So I'm stuck.

Mark Siegel

Good to know the fix worked! Thanks for letting us know.

Mark Siegel

If you look earlier in the thread, or perhaps in a related thread, you should be able to find the fix I posted earlier:

On newer MacBook Pro models:

"...because of menu bar space lost due to the top-center black area (for the camera), there's limited space for menu bar icons. I finally tried removing icons for apps I didn't really need in the menu bar, and as soon as there was enough space my Dropbox icon suddenly appeared, and was fully functional."

reggoboy

" as soon as there was enough space my Dropbox icon suddenly appeared"

My caution about this comment, which caused the problem to go on months longer than it needed to for me, can be found in my previous post.

The key is that there was "enough space" per se for the Dropbox icon in my menu bar. Maybe close to 3" of unused space. The gotcha comes from the way macOS handles allocating space. Imagine you go out to eat at a restaurant with a date and they tell you to wait. There are tons of tables for 2 free. But there's a group of 10 ahead of you, and they don't have room for that group. And since that group came in ahead of you, they insist on seating them before they seat you.

That's the lousy algorithm Apple is using to fit things into the menu bar. In my case, MenuMeters wanted a ton of space, so Apple chose not to display either MenuMeters OR anything in line after it.

So you can't just look for free space and you can't just look at what's already displayed when you consider what to free up. You have to go hunting for anything that is even TRYING to display in the menu, and turn it off. Or at least turn it back on ONLY AFTER turning Dropbox on.

normloomer

Yes! The problem was that there was not enough space for the Dropbox icon in the menu bar. The black camera notch bumped off icons that were happily in the menu bar on my old 2017 MacBook Air. After deleting some little-used icons and reinstalling Dropbox, all was well.

I can't be the only person running into this problem when moving from an older Mac to a new one that has the camera notch. It would be really helpful—and save a lot of time and stress—if the installation software or MacOS would warn the user that there was not enough space in the menu bar to install the icon.

reggoboy

I'm covering this more here:

https://talk.tidbits.com/t/menu-bar-icons-mysteriously-missing/22578/2