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After removing Dropbox from my Mac, it still appears in "login" items. Help?

I am running the latest version of Ventura on Mac. After being a long time fan of dropbox, I decided to stop using it after having problems with the syncing function and the way it would move files around. Even after deleting the application, dropbox remains in "login items" underneath "Allow in the background." When starting up my mac, I get a notification message that dropbox wants to work in the background. How can I completely remove dropbox from my Mac?

I would appreciate any help.

Thank you.

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BCW_HW

Thank you so much!! This terminal command

cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents
rm com.dropbox.DropboxMacUpdate.agent.plist

finally solved my issue of Dropbox appearing in the Allow in the Background menu under Login Items. Woot!

All comments

Jay

Hi @WonderingAboutThat, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

If you're looking to completely remove the Dropbox desktop application, try following the steps in the advanced reinstallation article.

Up until step 4 should be the last step you need to uninstall the app entirely, anything after that is to reinstall the app.

Keep me updated with any progress!

WonderingAboutThat

Thank you for your response.

Unfortunately this did not work.

After this command:

sudo mv ~/.dropbox ~/.Trash/dropbox.old

I received an error saying "No such file or directory."

I continue to receive this message each time I boot up the computer, even though I have it disabled in the "Allow in the background."

Screenshot 2023-02-22 at 10.53.11 AM.png

Screenshot 2023-02-22 at 11.36.02 AM.png

Additionally under the "Notifications" section of the system systems, Dropbox is not listed under "Application Notifications."

How is it possible that I am still receiving these notifications?

Does dropbox have any type of phone based customer support? I haven't been able to find a contact number.

I contacted apple support and they were not able to help me with this.

I would appreciate any further assistance you can offer.

Hannah

Hey @WonderingAboutThat, thanks for this info.

May we reach out to you via email, so we can take a closer look into this?

WonderingAboutThat

That would be fantastic! I would really appreciate the help. Is there a way I can send it to you privately without posting it publicly here?

Jay

HI @WonderingAboutThat, I've sent you an email, please could you reply to it as soon as possible!

renegrub

Same issue for me. Tried uninstalling DropBox but I still show the following in my login items. Super annoying. How do I remove this?

WonderingAboutThat

I have been in contact with dropbox support and they have not been able to provide a solution. They recommend I contact apple support but I haven't had good luck with apple support recently, so I'm waiting till I'm in a patient mindset and ready to deal with a long customer support call.

Here are the instructions that the dropbox support offered me but when I typed in the terminal commands, I received the error message that "no file or folder exists." PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THIS WORKS FOR YOU AND IF YOU FIND A SOLUTION. Best of luck!

-----

If you do wish to proceed with removing the Dropbox application completely, I understand you've already attempted to do the following:

Click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar.

Click your avatar (profile picture or initials).
Click Quit.
Open Finder.
Click Applications.
Drag Dropbox to the Trash.

To also remove the Dropbox folder from your hard drive, drag your Dropbox folder to the Trash.

The next step I would advise in order to Delete the remaining Dropbox system folders is to do the following;

Open your Finder and click Applications.
Open your Terminal application.
Copy and paste the following lines one at a time into the terminal. Press enter after each one.
- Don't type commands by hand.
- When prompted, enter your computer admin password (not your Dropbox password) and press enter.
- Important: We assume 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

WonderingAboutThat

Just a heads up, after two phone calls with apple, they weren't able to help me remove the login item. But I was getting a notification each time I started up my Mac that dropbox was adding background items and that seems to have stopped. All we did was startup in safe mode, restart the computer and then shutdown. Still probably need to try rebooting a few more times to be certain but I figured I would give this update.

Have you found any solutions?

Megan

Hi @WonderingAboutThat, I hope you're doing well on your end!

I was able to locate the ticket that my colleague opened for you, and it seems it has been closed by the system due to inactivity.

I'd suggest that you reply back to your ticket, in order to let the agent know that you checked with Apple about this. That should create a new ticket, and you can take it from there!

WonderingAboutThat

Thank you. I will try this.

Walter

Hey there from me too and sorry to jump in here, but let us know if you need anything else in the meantime @WonderingAboutThat

dbfsitot

I am also having this problem. I tried this approach and it didn't work. Please advise on how to remove Dropbox from my computer entirely.

dbfsitot

I'm having a problem where I removed Dropbox permissions for login and notifications but I still get notifications that Dropbox wants to run things in the background. I have tried removing the app, following the advanced reinstallation to delete all remaining Dropbox system folders, and nothing has helped. Please advise on how to remove Dropbox from my computer.

Jay

Hi @eaddiaz, when you performed the advanced reinstallation, without reinstalling, did you get any error messages at all?

WonderingAboutThat

Here is what worked for me, restart in safe mode, then shut down the computer and turn it back on in normal mode (that's what an apple advisor suggested). That stopped the notification from popping up anymore. I still have Dropbox listed in "Allow in the Background" in "Login Items" and neither apple support or dropbox support have been able to figure out how to remove it (and I've contacted multiple people from each support team).

Good luck!

dbfsitot

No I didn't get any error messages.

Emmet

Hi @eaddiaz ,

We’d like to check what’s going on here, would you mind if we reached out to the email associated with your community profile to look into this further?

Thank you!

Dropbox Community Team

DoctrNikhil

Even after deleting the application, dropbox remains in "login items" underneath "Allow in the background."

To fix this, run the command in terminal

cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents
rm com.dropbox.DropboxMacUpdate.agent.plist

BCW_HW

Thank you so much!! This terminal command

cd ~/Library/LaunchAgents
rm com.dropbox.DropboxMacUpdate.agent.plist

finally solved my issue of Dropbox appearing in the Allow in the Background menu under Login Items. Woot!

WonderingAboutThat

Oh my goodness it worked!! Finally!! Thank you!