You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

Daniella1's avatar
Daniella1
New member | Level 2
4 years ago

DropBox App not opening. Only Finder opens.

I work on a Mac. Whenever I click the Dropbox desktop app, finder opens instead of the app. Because of this I also cannot get to the preferences of the app either. Even if I right click the app on the doc, I do not get any settings. Just finder opens up and at the top bar of the finder there isn’t the dropbox icon to get preferences or change where files are synced. I would just like the app back, no more finder access. 

  • I had to restart my computer to get the Dropbox app to open (in order to get to preferences), but I was able to change it to opening on the Desktop app, so I am hoping that worked! 

  • janetk's avatar
    janetk
    New member | Level 2

    The finder-only option is rough. I have two dropbox accounts (a personal account and a work account). In order to change accounts via desktop, I had to uninstall and reinstall dropbox on my m1 mac. Is there any workaround to change accounts?

  • aewen's avatar
    aewen
    Helpful | Level 5

    This is happening to me as well, as of this morning. I restarted my Mac and it opened the app, but once I clicked out of it, it never opened again. Let me know if you find anything out. 

    • Hannah's avatar
      Hannah
      Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

      Hey Daniella1 and aewen, thanks for reaching out to us!

      Can you try going to the Dropbox application's preferences and from the 'general' tab, change the 'open folders in' setting to 'Dropbox desktop app' and let me know if it works?

      Thanks!

      • mf2022's avatar
        mf2022
        New member | Level 2

        Hello. My Dropbox icon in the tools bar (on Mac) does not have that "open in" option under Preferences- General. Please advise.

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    Thanks for the update, that's perfect!

    You should be good now.

    If you need anything else, make sure to give us a shout!
    • aewen's avatar
      aewen
      Helpful | Level 5

      Alright, Hannah. Round two! I am on my laptop now and even when restarting my computer, I cannot get it to open the Dropbox app. Therefore, I cannot get to Dropbox preferences to change the setting to Desktop app. Something has to be wrong if it is continuing to mess up....

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        Hi aewen, just to clarify, do you see the Dropbox icon appear in the menu bar near the clock? What message do you get if you hover over it?
  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    No worries, glad to hear you were able to change the preferences. Let me know if you have any further queries in future.

    Enjoy your weekend!
    • dartie's avatar
      dartie
      New member | Level 2

      Unfortunately none of the above is working for me. I am unable to get the Dropbox app to open and NO it's not appearing in the menu bar. I have tried many things including:

      - restarting the MacBook Pro (M1 chip)

      - adding Dropbox to permissions in system preferences

      - deleting Dropbox and downloading a new version.

      I've noticed that my OneDrive is also having the same issues.

    • meecs's avatar
      meecs
      New member | Level 2

      I'm having this issue too! Anyone have ideas on how to fix it? When I go into preferences I don't get have "open folders in" as an option.

      • Mark's avatar
        Mark
        Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

        Unfortunately meecs this is a change in the product - the Dropbox software you saw on the computer was depreciated on the 17th of Jan. As such the only choice and option now is to open finder. 

  • Marcellon's avatar
    Marcellon
    New member | Level 2
    I was able to get to preferences by clicking the Dropbox icon on the top bar and clicking my picture and then selecting preferences. I deselected all the items and thought that would put all those items online only. They are still on my hard disk. Do I have to erase all these documents and folders?
    • Megan's avatar
      Megan
      Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff

      Hi Marcellon, welcome to our Community! 

       

      Can you clarify a bit more as to the settings and items you unchecked during this process? 

       

      Which feature are you referring to? Provided you're talking about Smart sync, you would need to follow these steps in order for your content to be online only. 

       

      Let me know more.