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"View your recycle bin for Dropbox" - how can I disable this?

I'm not sure if it's a recent addition or if I simply didn't notice it before, but recently, at the bottom of the open "Recycle Bin" on Windows, it has a bar along the bottom that says "View your recycle bin for: Dropbox", with 'Dropbox' a link that opens my Dropbox account in the browser.

Is there any way to turn this off? It's not a useful feature for me, and it takes up screen space that could be used for displaying more of the Recycle Bin contents.

Thanks.

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TNTyce

I found where this problem is coming from and located.

If you have done anything with sync setting in Dropbox, this will appear in registry.

Delete ONLY the blue highlighted entry RecycleBinUrl.

It should then disappear in the Recycle Bin explorer area.

It worked for me.

FYI... IT IS NOT A WINDOWS OS level problem. It is created by Dropbox.

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Nancy

Thanks for posting on the Community, @anastrophe!

Can you send me a full screenshot of what you see on your end, so that I can guide you from there?

I’d also like to know the OS version of your computer, as well as the app version of the Dropbox app that’s installed on it.

Keep me in the loop.

anastrophe

Well, I've tried twice to post my reply with a screenshot, but both times the reply just vanishes into the aether.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

DropBox v.200.3.7089

Perhaps there's a size limit, so this third try I'll shrink the image down. I'd have expected some sort of an error to have been displayed.

2024-05-23 18_43_34-Recycle Bin.png

Megan

Hey @anastrophe, thanks for the screenshot, and added info!

It looks like this is directly linked to your OS, and not Dropbox-specifically.

In any case, your feedback regarding this has been very valuable and I will endeavor to make sure your voice is heard.

I'll forward your feedback to the appropriate areas so we can continue to improve.

Thanks!

anastrophe

Interesting! I guess I'll have to dig a little deeper, it's such an oddly specific 'addition' to how the recycle bin works.

Thanks for checking on it!

Megan

No problem at all @anastrophe!

I'll be here if you have any updates!

TNTyce

Has there been any solution to this problem? I now have the same thing showing in my Recycle Bin explorer. It is very annoying. Thank you for any help.

Mark

@TNTyce wrote:
Has there been any solution to this problem? I now have the same thing showing in my Recycle Bin explorer. It is very annoying. Thank you for any help.

It isnt a Dropbox issue I'm afraid - its something that has been done at OS level.

Have you recently changed any files in Windows etc.?

TNTyce

Mark,

Thank you for the reply.

Only change I have made is I updated Dropbox. It was long overdue.

It was not there with the older version that was running beforehand. So I am apt to say it was Dropbox update.

FYI: Also, I am retired IT and I have done an extensive search for the setting in registry and in the Windows settings themselves. Nothing found. Has to be on the programming side of Dropbox.

I am running up-to-date Windows 10.

Thank you.

TNTyce

I found where this problem is coming from and located.

If you have done anything with sync setting in Dropbox, this will appear in registry.

Delete ONLY the blue highlighted entry RecycleBinUrl.

It should then disappear in the Recycle Bin explorer area.

It worked for me.

FYI... IT IS NOT A WINDOWS OS level problem. It is created by Dropbox.

anastrophe

Great find.

Now, Dropbox, since it's not a Windows issue but a Dropbox issue - can you please ask the devs to add a settings toggle or something along those lines, set it to default to 'off', and then notify users of the availability of this feature...that apparently only the devs were aware of?

I'm comfortable editing the registry just as TNTyce is, but I know a lot of people who would brick their machine (or their brain, or both) if they tried to implement this fix.

TNTyce

anastrophe,

Did the fix work for you?

anastrophe

Yep, very straightforward and easy. But users shouldn't have to do registy editing to disable a feature they never asked for - I'm sure you agree.

TNTyce

Happy the fix worked!

If certain features are introduced with no knowledge of how to enable/disable it then why put them in at all. As you can see even the Super-Users had no clue.

As a side note, I use 2 computers for Dropbox both with the same account. I DID delete the entire registry entry and it "bricked" Dropbox! Had to uninstall and re-install the program. That's why I said only Url entry. Good thing is my 2nd computer is used as a "test" computer so I can check for any faults, errors etc. on updates before doing them on my main computer. I call my secondary computer a "mirror" computer. It has saved many a headache!

McChicken

Thank you! So ridiculous that they forced this and made it so you had to edit the registry!???? I almost want to just uninstall the application because of this.. How intrusive!

_eternal

Thanks for finding the solution (a solution to a very stupid problem, I might add).

For the sake of making it easier to copy-paste for other people, here's the registry address: Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\SyncRootManager

You can also ctrl+f for RecycleBinUrl, but please make sure you don't accidentally delete a key with the same name for some other application.

Peelsepuuppi

I had to make a forum registration just to reply to this. What an absurd statement.

Did this appear when you first install Windows. Did it appear when installing google drive? No, it appeared after installing Dropbox.

This is 1000% a Dropbox issue and has nothing to do with windows other than windows giving Dropbox developers the ability to do this. This feature was enabled by Dropbox developers and appears because they decided to make it.

They have the ability to take it away and the ability to provide users with a switch to remove it, if they want to.

It's ridiculous to blame Windows for something that the Dropbox team has consciously decided to implement in their program.

Peelsepuuppi

How can a Dropbox staffer outright lie to people and say that a feature your development team implemented is not a Dropbox issue, but rather an OS issue? This doesn't happen on Windows if the person doesn't install the Dropbox app in the first place.

TNTyce

As I always say "Sometimes the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing and vice-versa". Very happy people are finding the solution here.

anastrophe

I would give the benefit of the doubt to first-line technical/customer support. I think the underlying problem is that the devs implemented this "feature" and didn't document it, so first-line support had no knowledge of it.

What _is_ frustrating is that there's been no acknowledgment of the error since it's been empirically proven to be a dropbox "feature", and it appears not to be documented anywhere customer-facing.