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Forum Discussion
Dropbox on desktop associated with email I no longer have
Hello, a while back I had a dropbox trial, and possible a subscription that is now expired. I didn't realize that I set it up for downloads on my desktop to immediately go to.
The email I had associated with the trial is one that I no longer have access it and unfortunately for whatever reason I didn't save the password to my password manager. I've been logged into it, and today needed to access another dropbox account of mine and realized I can't get back into the previous one.
My files are still accessible on my computer, but I am getting multiple synch error messages. What is the best way to deal with this? Start a new drop box and resave everything in it? or is there a way to recover the old and change the email? Normally I would reset password, but since I don't have access to that email anymore, that won't work. I wasn't sure which area to post this, so if it is better in another place please let me know.
Thank you so much!
As long as you have everything stored locally on your device (i.e. nothing SmartSync'd and nothing in Selective Sync etc.) you should be able to do this easily.
For safety what I'd suggest is:
- Set up a new account with an email you've access to
- Log out of Dropbox on the computer: https://help.dropbox.com/accounts-billing/settings-sign-in/sign-in-out
- Download the newest version from www.dropbox.com/downloading
- Sign in with the new email address and password. During the setup process it should detect you already have a Dropbox directory and ask if you want to use it. Click yes.
- Everything will then re-upload to Dropbox and all should be peachy and work 🙂
- Rich
Super User II
CoastalClover wrote:
What is the best way to deal with this? Start a new drop box and resave everything in it?
Yes, you'll need to start a new account. If you're no longer signed in, can't remember the password and no longer have access to the email address, then there's no way to gain access to the account again.
Thank you for the super quick and helpful reply. When I add the new dropbox account, will I need to go and save every file individually to it, or is there a way to synch it up automatically? As you can tell, I'm not a dropbox super user. 🙂 I am on a Mac running Monterrey if that makes a difference. I just want to make sure I know what I'm doing so I don't go in and accidentally delete something important.
Thank you again!
- Mark
As long as you have everything stored locally on your device (i.e. nothing SmartSync'd and nothing in Selective Sync etc.) you should be able to do this easily.
For safety what I'd suggest is:
- Set up a new account with an email you've access to
- Log out of Dropbox on the computer: https://help.dropbox.com/accounts-billing/settings-sign-in/sign-in-out
- Download the newest version from www.dropbox.com/downloading
- Sign in with the new email address and password. During the setup process it should detect you already have a Dropbox directory and ask if you want to use it. Click yes.
- Everything will then re-upload to Dropbox and all should be peachy and work 🙂
