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Lost Dropbox shortcut in Locations

Tacitus24

Just installed DB 162.4.5419 on my Mbk Air M1 (Montery 12.6.1) and it created a shortcut labelled 'Dropbox' in Locations in the Finder Sidebar - NOT in favorites as previous. I gather this is to be the new system. Fair enough.

However I attempted to move this shortcut to favorites - I know, should have left it alone - and I now cannot find the original shortcut to return it to Locations in the Sidebar. I've tried doing a simple alias to the DB folder in ~/Library/CloudStorage but this doesn't work.

Anyone tell me how the original shortcut can be re-created in the 'Locations' sidebar without the appendage of 'alias' .

Thanks for any help

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MCDirect

Thank you for your help! This remedied the problem. It is, however, a little different for Ventura users. See below:

In Ventura 13.1 go to:

Finder Window
Finder Settings
Click on the "sidebar" icon
In the "Locations" list click or unclick Cloud Storage, then click again so it is checked.

All your cloud storage locations will now show up. Dropbox should be back on there.

All comments

Hannah

Hey @Tacitus24, thanks for reaching out to the Dropbox Community.

I believe this should have more to do with your OS, rather than Dropbox.

If you take a look this or this article, can you find any helpful info?

Let me know how it goes.

Tacitus24

I think it's a combination of both the OS and DropBox.

Thanks for the links but I couldn't find anything that would help.

I downloaded the installer for 162.4.2.5419 arm64 and tried doing a reinstall. Since the installer would (should!!) see this as a new install then it should create a shortcut to: ~/Library/CloudStorage/DropBox and place that in the Finder sidebar locations section.

Unfortunately it didn't....

The only alternative is to use an uninstall app so that all vestiges of Dropbox are removed and then try a completely clean install. I have a fresh backup of the Dropbox folder so that shouldn't present any problems. Please can you let me have a link to an uninstall app for Mac.

MacOS Monterey 12.6.1 Dropbox: 162.4.2.5419 arm64

Tacitus24

It appears impossible to remove the Dropbox folder from ~/Library/CloudStorage maybe because this folder location has greater security. Drag to the bin doesn't work and there doesn't appear to be any menu command that would override that possibly using Sudo. I'm not very good with Unix CLI do I won't go down that track.....

The fact the Dropbox folder remains there is possibly fooling the installer into thinking that a shortcut has already been created and so it skips that step in its install routine. As a result after the reinstall, there is still no shortcut in the Locations sidebar.

One for the Devs to sort out, but I doubt I'll be the last person to delete the shortcut from the locations panel in Finder sidebar, either accidentally or on purpose.

Tacitus24

Anyone else offer any help with this? Basically I've botched the shortcut in the Locations area of the Finder sidebar, it's now vanished and I can't recreate it. The only way I can see to do this, is via a complete delete of Dropbox - IE delete *all* relevant files - followed by a clean install. That way I should ultimately find the DropBox shortcut in the Locations area of the Finder sidebar.

Moving the Dropbox app to the Bin and then reinstalling it doesn't recreate the shortcut in Locations.

MacBook Air M1; MacOS Monterey 12.6.1 Dropbox 162.4.5419.arm64

Tacitus24

Hi Hannah:

Thanks for the reply.

Tried yet another reinstall of the Dropbox app in an attempt to recreate the sidebar Locations shortcut.

I've figured out why it's impossible to recreate the shortcut in the Locations sideba even with a reinstall of the Dropbox app.

Even if you attempt to completely delete all things related to Dropbox including the app and any support files, it is impossible to delete the Dropbox folder contained in ~/Library/CloudStorage When doing the reinstall of the DropBox app, it must see this Dropbox folder is already there and think the shortcut is in place. I suppose it does stop accidental or malicious removal of the Dropbox folder but I can't believe I will be the only one who accidentally removes the shortcut and finds it impossible to recreate it.

One way round this would be for the installer app to ignore the existing dropbox folder and recreate the shortcut overwriting any existing one. This should cover the possibility that the user has accidentally deleted it.

Does anyone know a way that a shortcut can be recreated and placed in the locations sidebar? Right now the only way I can access the Dropbox folder is via the menu bar icon.

Christoph H.2

I have the same issue (Mac Mini M1, macos 12.6, dropbox app v163.4.5456). I recently followed the update procedure prompted by the dropbox app and it went through fine. I'm not sure whether Dropbox ever showed up under locations, but it doesn't now and I can't seem to get t to show up there (just like the other cloud storages listed in .../Library/CloudStorage/)

Tacitus24

Hi Christoph H 2: I didn't think I would be the only one to experience this problem and I doubt we'll be the last.

The Dropbox team seem content to see it as a MacOS problem and wash their hands of it. It should be perfectly possible to reinstall the Dropbox app and have it recreate the link in the proper place. I doubt this would mean significant mods to the installer package to allow it to do this. When all is said and done it's the changes to the installer and positioning of the Dropbox folder that is allowing this to happen.

Alternatively a short 'make link' routine to do the same ****** would be OK. Either way remediation should be possible without a lot of bother.

Tacitus24

Backup your DropBox contents to a safe place. Then try booting into 'safe' mode. Once in Safe mode remove all references to Dropbox including the app, any prefs etc. I think that somehwere on this forum there is a complete list of all the components DropBox installs.

Note that you can delete ~/Library/CloudStorage since when you log out or reboot, the OS will create a fresh empty copy. Only do this if you have backed up any sub-folders contained in ~/Library/CloudStorage. If you do delete it other cloud storage folders contained in there will also be deleted and you will probably have to reinstall those cloud apps to recreate the folders. I only had the Dropbox folder in there so it wasn't a problem as I was deleting it anyway.

Now logout and log back in to user mode. Download the latest installer from the Dropbox website and reinstall Dropbox. Depending on the installer you should find either; the Dropbox folder is in the 'traditional' location and you have a message to update the DB app, OR the Dropbox folder is in ~/Library/CloudStorage You may have to log back in to Dropbox but the Dropbox folder will probably re-populate itself. If it doesn't you should have your back up which you can use to do it manually.

As always use at your own risk since I don't accept any responsibility for lost data, although if you've backed up your current DB folder that shouldn't happen. However the above worked for me and I had a new link in the 'locations' sidebar....

For the record this was on MacOS Monterey 12.6.2 No idea whether the same process will work with MacOS Ventura.

Yellowfields

Using Ventura 13.1 on a Mac Studio (M1). The latest update to Dropbox (v164.4.7914) moved the folder and icon to 'Locations' in the Finder window sidebar. However, every restart, it's missing. I've manually set up a new shortcut there, but it disappears without fail on every system restart. Syncing, etc., works, but it becomes problematic to keep trying to locate the folder on the Mac. Seems to be an Apple silicon issue as my Intel MacBook Pro doesn't have the same issue based upon the same OS and Dropbox version, although it doesn't show the Dropbox icon?

Megan

Hey there, @Yellowfields, I hope you're doing well!

It might sound trivial, but have you tried uninstalling, and then re-installing the app?

If you could also send me a couple of screenshots, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks a bunch!

vurt

I just lost my Dropbox icon under Locations in the sidebar too.

And as a user, I can't drag and drop Dropbox back into Locations.

But I managed to manually add it back to the sidebar under Favorites.

Open up a Finder window.

Press shift+cmd+g for "go to..."

Enter "~Library/CloudStorage"

Drag and drop the Dropbox icon to Favorites

vurt

I looked into this problem again and this time, I managed to get the Dropbox folder icon back under "Locations" in the Finder sidebar.

To replicate:

Open a Finder window
Press CMD+, or go to Finder Preferences
Look at Locations
There's a bunch of stuff like "****** disks", "External disks" etc
You want to find "Cloud Storage"
In my instance, the checkbox next to "Cloud Storage" shows a minus/dash, indicating not all options are checked
I clicked on the checkbox so it becomes unchecked
Then I checked it again so the checkbox shows a tick—not the minus/dash—so in the Mac UI language, a full tick means all options are checked, vs selected options as indicated by the minus/dash

That got Dropbox back under Locations in the Finder sidebar.

If you uncheck "Cloud Storage", you'll notice ALL cloud storage including Google Drive, is gone from Locations.

Checking brings all of them back.

@Megan, @Tacitus23 maybe you can confirm?

MCDirect

Thank you for your help! This remedied the problem. It is, however, a little different for Ventura users. See below:

In Ventura 13.1 go to:

Finder Window
Finder Settings
Click on the "sidebar" icon
In the "Locations" list click or unclick Cloud Storage, then click again so it is checked.

All your cloud storage locations will now show up. Dropbox should be back on there.

Dinozoiks

That solved it... showing Cloud Storage in the side bar. Thank you! 👍 So while *technically* it's an OS thing, I'd argue an update that relies on a visibility toggle that is set to off by default and is buried in a settings menu you use once every 3 years, is a fairly unhelpful user experience. Ideally the update process should, at some point, make you aware of this. Or maybe it's a sneaky way to get more forum sign-ups. Either way, thanks for the snooping and solving!

MCDirect

I could not agree more!