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My Mac desktop app no longer syncs to my Dropbox account online.

Hi all

I'm sure this has come up many times before but I can't find an answer. Folders/files which I have created on my Mac have not been syncing to my online Dropbox account since April 2024 (only realised it today). Also, files which my wife has created in a shared folder do not appear on my mac though they do appear in my own and my wife's online account. So this is definitely an issue with my Mac not syncing. I'm thinking that I need to uninstall the app from my mac and reinstall it but I am concerned that I will lose recently created folders/files as they have not uploaded to my online account. Should I be concerned? Or should I go ahead and uninstall/reinstall the app on my mac?

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Nancy

Hi @andymadden! Welcome to our forum.

Before taking any actions on your Dropbox app, can you clarify its syncing status and app version?

Other than that, I’d like you to compare the email address you see here with the one you see under the Account tab of your app preferences and let me know if they’re the exact same.

Keep me posted for any updates.

andymadden

Hi Nancy

In trying to find where to find the syncing status and the app version, I have discovered that syncing has not occurred since 24th July 2024. Now, I have to come clean with you. The issue is on my wife's Mac and not on my own laptop. My wife is at work and has left me with the task of sorting out the issue. I have complete access to her mac and I have discovered that the app seems to have been linked to a different email address from the one which has Dropbox Plus and to which she saves all her files. Indeed, the usage of her new account is 0.0% of 2Gb...so, of course, the sync status reads "Files are up to date". I have been unable to locate "About Dropbox" for the app version. I have located "Get info" which does not show a version but does show that that it was last used on 24th July. In the menu sidebar on the Mac, the correct account is located under Favourites and the new account is located under Locations.

I have tried to re-link the Dropbox folder on her mac but it is not allowing me to do it. She has never opened a Dropbox account under the gmail address it now thinks is the correct one so I have no idea how it has created the account. Under Preferences, if I sign out of the new (Basic) account and then try to log back in, it automatically opens the new account and does not give me the option to sign in with the old account login.

I'm stuck! Should I uninstall Dropbox from the Mac altogether, then re-install it? I do not know what the impact will be on the files she has created since July.

andymadden

I guess I could delete the Dropbox account linked to the gmail address? As I say, there's nothing in it and I should then be able to login with the original username and password...which I have.

Hannah

Hey @andymadden, thanks for this info.

Firstly, to see the Dropbox app version, you'll need to hover over the Dropbox icon in the computer's menu bar.

Before you take any actions on the app or the new account linked to it, I would definitely suggest keeping a copy of the files that you're not able to access on your computer (or online), just to make sure we don't lose anything.

Once that's done, you could try unlinking the computer from the new account; do you have login access to that new account?

If so, you can go to the security page and click on the trash can next to the computer name.

This should disconnect the computer from that account and the app should then allow you to login with the correct account.

Let me know how that goes.

AbhishekDBX

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the context - just to summarize what I'm hearing, it seems like Dropbox sync-ing is operating fine but the problem is that the account active on your wife's laptop isn't the account she has the Plus subscription in, and when you tried to log out and log back in, you got logged back into this account.

Let's call Plus account as your main account where you want files stored and synced.

Let's call Basic account as the second account you are currently logged into.

If you're confident there's nothing in the Plus account, I'd recommend doing the following to get the data in the right account syncing back.

1. Signing into the Dropbox app redirects you to a web browser - you might be logged into the Basic account in the browser. Go to dropbox.com on your browser and log out from the basic account there. Then login in there using the Plus account - once logged in you can confirm which account this is.

2. Go to the Dropbox app on your laptop and logout (Click the menubar icon for Dropbox -> Click on the profile icon in the top right -> Preferences -> Accounts -> Logout).

3. Now click login to go through the login flow and ensure you log in using the Plus account here. This should setup Dropbox account as syncing again.

4. Go to the folder(s) that you want synced to your account, and move those over into the Dropbox folder. You can click on the Dropbox Menubar/Tray icon and click the folder icon to open the actual folder for your Dropbox folder.
5. You can drag this folder to the saved favorites in Finder to have a quick link.