Which Dropbox icon do I need to click on to access my account settings on Windows?

I believe what Hannah meant was that the cache folder can’t be moved on its own to a different location; since it’s a hidden folder within your root Dropbox folder, it can only be moved with it.

To move the Dropbox folder to a different drive altogether, you'll need to follow the steps Hannah listed here.

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Thanks for posting about this on the Community, @thomehm.

Can you send me a screenshot of which Dropbox icon you’re clicking on exactly?

The one that allows you to change your Dropbox app preferences should be located in your system tray, at the bottom right part of your screen, along with your clock and language settings (I’m also including this Help Center article to have a visual of what it looks like exactly).

Let me know if that helps at all.

Can you also send me a full screenshot of the icon with what you see right after clicking on it?

Walter

Thanks for the screenshot @thomehm

Could you click on the Dropbox icon in your system tray and try to change your settings through the app's preferences?

That is a problem. When I click on the dropbox icon I get the page shown above. This does not look like any application main UI page. It is Windows Explorer showing the dropbox directory. I see no Options or settings or app preferences button or menu which would give me access to dropbox app preferences. It is like a car with no steering wheel or dashboard.

Hey @thomehm, you should be able to see a menu to access the Dropbox preferences, if you click on the Dropbox icon in your system tray, so there's clearly an issue here.

If you hover over that icon with your mouse, what do you see?

Also, it may sound unimportant, but have you restarted your computer at all during this time?

It says "Dropbox"

I should also tell you that I had the same issue with onedrive. In fact, the context was that I had made a Macrium system image and wanted to upload it to onedrive. I have used both onedrive and dropbox for years, but all files were comparatively small, so I used the defaults, and all I needed to do was to copy it to the dropbox or onedrive directory, and then the files were automatically loaded into the cloud. But this time, since my image files were over 1 TB, I decided to connect an external 4 TB SSD and move the propagation directory to the external SSD and obviously that required some reconfiguration. But then I couldn't find out how to access onedrive settings. So, then I thought I would use dropbox for this purpose instead. But then, I had the same problem with dropbox.

My point here is there could be some configuration issue with my system. So, I cannot say there is a bug in dropbox. But, it might allow you to add some defensive code such that dropbox app can automatically apply a work around for such a user system problem, or could warn the user of a problem he needs to fix with his system.

I have restarted my computer multiple times.

Hi again! From the screenshots you've sent us above, it seems like you’re clicking on the Dropbox folder which has been pinned on to your taskbar, which is why you see the files/folders in your Dropbox folder in your File Explorer after that.

Can you also send me a screenshot of the options you have in your system tray, where your clock settings are showing? If there’s also a little arrow there, please click on it and show me the apps you see then.

I'd like to check if the Dropbox app is actually running at the moment or if we'll need to take another step to relaunch it.

I hope that this is what you want and is visible to you.

https://help.dropbox.com/installs/system-tray-menu-bar

Hi again, @thomehm.

If you click on the following link, you'll see the Dropbox icon we're referring to and where you should be seeing it:

If you don't see it there at all, let us know.

No, what the link refers to is not there in my system tray.

If you click on the “Other system tray icons” option that appears in one of your latest screenshots, are you able to add the Dropbox icon to your system tray perhaps?

From what I can see, there are no icons showing in your system tray (next to your clock settings) at all, so I believe that’s the issue here.

OK, I now see one problem. I have three monitors on my desktop system. The monitor that is directly in front of my, which is the best monitor on my system, and is the one that I use more than any other is not the monitor Windows 11 sees as the home monitor.

Here is the tray of the monitor in front of me :

And here is the tray of the monitor that Windows 11 thinks is my main monitor:

But I still don't see how to change the dropbox Cache directory location, which is at C:\users\thomehm\dropbox, to my external SSD at f: ? This drive is 4TB which is big enough for full system backup files. And then after storing the backup has completed, I will want to remove the full system backup files from and save them only online at dropbox.

The location of the cache folder cannot be changed, @thomehm.

It might be possible to move the Dropbox folder itself to a different location, by following these steps.

Keep in mind that moving the Dropbox folder to an external drive, though, holds some file deletion risks, if the drive gets disconnected or if the Dropbox app starts before the drive is connected to the computer.

But the files that I want to upload to Dropbox total over 1 TB, because they are my computer image. This is more than the space available in the Dropbox Cache folder, even more than is available on the entire C: drive. How can I upload such large files to dropbox. If I break it all up to small enough files to upload individually, it seems that this would be very laborious. I would like it to be at least semi automatic.

I understand where you're coming from, @thomehm.

You could sync your files in batches, switch each batch to online-only to free up space and then move on to the next batch.

And moving the Dropbox folder to an external drive is possible, I just wanted to note the risks that come with it, basically.

"The location of the cache folder cannot be changed"

"And moving the Dropbox folder to an external drive is possible"

Aren't these two statements mutually exclusive? If it is possible, How does one do that?