Dropbox menu bar icon for Mac OS was missing, here's how I solved it

DianeCarol

Application Affected

Dropbox Desktop App for Mac
Device

Macbook Pro (2020 13-inch M1 chip)
Operating System

Sequoia, MacOS15.37.2
Dropbox App Version

239.4.8301

Question or Issue

Hi!

I had been having the same issue it seems a bunch of other Mac users have been having: the Dropbox icon for the desktop app disappeared from my menu bar at the top of the screen months ago.

The only way to access Dropbox after that (besides via browser) was to navigate to Finder, where I have an icon in the left Favorites list, or by going to Finder > Applications > Dropbox - HOWEVER, that would NOT open the app, but rather a Finder window that listed my Dropbox files.


I finally got to the point today where I thought I'd Google to see if I could solve the issue, and quickly found so. many. support threads, both here and on the Mac support forum - but NONE of them were resolved (aside from a few folks who advised simply getting rid of some of the other icons in the menu bar to have the Dropbox one be revealed - but I tried that and it didn't work for me).


ANYWAY, I DID FIGURE OUT - SOMEHOW - HOW TO RETURN THE DROPBOX ICON TO MY MENU BAR, so I thought I'd share:


For me, all it took, was - INSTEAD of navigating to Dropbox via Finder - using Launchpad.


I went to Launchpad, searched for the Dropbox app icon, and clicked on it to try to open the app.

It didn't work - BUT! - it DID open the icon back up on my menu bar!

And suddenly I have files listed as added "3 minutes ago" that are 4 years old... Hooray! I guess I hadn't actually been syncing all this time? Or who knows at this point.

ANYWAY, I thought I'd share this miracle with all the other Mac users out there who were so frustrated at losing the icon in the menu bar

Jay

Hi @DianeCarol, thanks for contacting us!

We appreciate the solution that worked for you regarding the Dropbox icon in the menu bar on Mac OS.

In general, if you don’t see the Dropbox icon in your menu bar, it might be hidden. When the menu bar gets crowded, macOS may hide some icons.

To prevent this from happening, you can pin the Dropbox icon in your menu bar so that it stays always visible.

To find and pin the Dropbox icon:

• Temporarily remove other icons in your menu bar by quitting those apps.
• When you see the Dropbox icon, press and hold command.
• Drag and drop the Dropbox icon to the right side of the menu bar. 

When the icon is in that position it’s less likely to be hidden when many apps are open.

Let me know if you need any more info!