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

Ueli's avatar
Ueli
Helpful | Level 5
7 months ago

How can I disable Dropbox for individual users on a Windows PC?

I have a PC (Windows 11) with accounts for multiple users, i.e. a family PC. I am using dropbox, and it works well. However, other users are not using dropbox. These other users experience an annoying dropbox feature after every Windows login: A dropbox panel pops up and invites them to create a dropbox account.

I think these users should be able to say "No thanks, and never ask again". But I haven't found a way to stop the panel from popping up again and again. Not having a dropbox account, these users have no access to dropbox settings and preferences.

 

Is there a way to stop this invitation panel? Not a serious problem, but an annoying feature ..

 


  • Ueli wrote:

    When given, dropbox startup is indeed disabled - not only for this user, but for all users of the PC.


    I didn't realize it disabled that for all users.

     

    Disable it for all users, then create your own shortcut for Dropbox and place it in the Startup folder within your own user profile.

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

    Ueli wrote:

    Not having a dropbox account, these users have no access to dropbox settings and preferences.


    Have each of them use the Startup Apps section in Windows to turn off Dropbox.

    • Ueli's avatar
      Ueli
      Helpful | Level 5

      Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work for me. It's an "all or nothing" situation.

      When one of the non-dropbox-users wants to turn off dropbox in the startup list, Windows asks for the admin password. When given, dropbox startup is indeed disabled - not only for this user, but for all users of the PC. However, I want to use dropbox just for myself, so I don't want it turned off.

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

        Ueli wrote:

        When given, dropbox startup is indeed disabled - not only for this user, but for all users of the PC.


        I didn't realize it disabled that for all users.

         

        Disable it for all users, then create your own shortcut for Dropbox and place it in the Startup folder within your own user profile.

  • JpFortran's avatar
    JpFortran
    Explorer | Level 4

    Hi there, 

    I had to reset to factory my win10 pc. Once done, I've customized my profile (the one and only user by then) including installing and connecting to my dbox account.
    After that I added another user to pc, and when loggin-in this new user, dbox start asking to log-in (or create a new account) every single time this new user logs in. As this 2nd user I went to startup apps and turned dbox off.. just to realize later dbox went off globally  (means the 1st user also stop running dbox at its log-in) .. seems dbox was globally installed during 1st user customization.
    The point is, being logged as 2nd user, I cannot find sort of option 'stop asking for log-in to this user'  or such as .. there's no dbox icon on status bar to right-click on, coz -obviously- this user doesn't logs in. 
    So, 'the' question: is there anyway to tell dbox stop asking for log-in to this 2nd user (in fact there's a 3rd user as well, in wich I'm affraid to log in) .. or should I uninstall the whole dbox and re-install it on the 1st user profile ~ hoping it will ask then for 'global or single-user' installation?
    Thanks in advance 

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

      JpFortran wrote:

      ... is there anyway to tell dbox stop asking for log-in to this 2nd user ...


      No. See my response above.

  • TheBugReporter's avatar
    TheBugReporter
    New member | Level 2

    (I would have added this comment here, but that thread is locked.)

     

    Note that the default setting within Dropbox that starts Dropbox on startup starts Dropbox on any user's startup.  If you have more than one account on your machine, even if the other one is just a separate Administrator account★, all of them will attempt to start Dropbox on logon, regardless of who it is, regardless of whether the person owning the Windows account has a Dropbox account or not, and regardless of whether the current Windows account belongs to a real person or not.

     

    ★ BTW, it's a smart precaution to activate the Administrator account and remove the Administrator privileges from your normal account.  This shouldn't get in the way of your normal use of the computer - unless your normal use involves installing and removing programs repeatedly every day. ☺

     

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

      TheBugReporter wrote:

      Note that the default setting within Dropbox that starts Dropbox on startup starts Dropbox on any user's startup.


      I've merged your post into this thread. Refer to my response at the top of this thread.

  • Rick C.21's avatar
    Rick C.21
    Helpful | Level 5

    Easy way in this environment is to use task mangler and disable DropBox in Startup.  That-away, other users are not affected.  (The less users have to think about something, the better)

About Settings and Preferences

The Dropbox Community is here to help if you have questions about your account settings and preferences. Learn and share advice with members.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!