How can I fully uninstall Dropbox?

[george-p]

I was looking for advanced instructions on how to fully uninstalling Dropbox, but I could not find any.

The standard uninstallation instruction leaves a bunch of leftover files/apps/startup items like DropboxHelperTools and DropboxMacUpdate.app and the advanced reinstall guide does not remove these files.

It would be great to have an advanced uninstallation guide to help your users properly fully remove leftover files, instead of letting your users experiment on their own (which could cause more harm than good).

[Hannah · Accepted solution]

Hey @george-p, thanks for joining us on the Dropbox Community!

We do have an article that gives you instructions on how to perform a more advanced reinstall of the Dropbox app.

If you follow steps 1-4, you should be able to accomplish what you want.

Here's the article for your convenience.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[KTransue]

Worked perfectly.  Nicely described.  Thank you!

[deejay4704]

Hannah, I reviewed your post and the linked article in conjunction with my efforts to uninstall Dropbox and reinstall it using a completely different account.  What I've experienced on several attempts, including manually deleting everything named "Dropbox" on the C:/ drive, drove me down to the information in the article about using RegEdit.  I have used RegEdit quite a few times but it is always a last result and most people consider that necessity to suggest bad design on the installation/uninstallation software.  It is still quite easy to make a mistake in RegEdit with disastrous effects.

Is there really no other way to completely disengage this computer from the previous Dropbox account ?  Is anyone working on a safer, more robust solution to this issue ?

[Jay]

Hi @deejay4704, the advanced uninstallation is intended to remove all traces of Dropbox on a machine.

Signing out of the desktop app is enough to unlink the device from a specific Dropbox account, if that is what you require.