How do I turn off dropbox on the free account?

[ang133]

Dropbox is a monster. It's on my desktop and every file goes through it. But when I click on it there are no files in it. I somehow managed to get it not to add files to the online app because I was running out of space, but it's still on my computer. But if I delete it, all my files will get deleted. I made that mistake once, and it deleted files permanently from my desktop before I stopped it. I tried to find the files on the online app, but it didn't show anything. In fact, it just has photos and public as my files.

If I get a new computer and I copy my files and programs on a file transmitter or thumb drive--will I be safe from deletions if I don't include dropbox in the transfer?

[Hannah]

Thanks for getting back to me.

The folder in your second screenshot is a folder named "Dropbox", but it doesn't look like it's syncing with your Dropbox account.

Was this perhaps copied over to your desktop from a different location?

Also, when you open this folder, do you see the files in your first screenshot or do you see different files in there?

[ang133]

• The open folder has all the files in my documents and all the downloads, when I want to save a file it will go to dropbox/desktop/file name (which is that open file icon). I will then move it down to my PC and documents and then to the file I want it to go in because I don't want to keep it in dropbox--but it really does keep it there. The first screenshot has no files from my computer, but just those that you see in the screenshot and other than some data files, they are empty.  There are no old files--the June date is when I lost my files when I tried to delete dropbox.

[Megan]

You mentioned there's nothing in your deleted files page online.

But what about your events page? What do you see there? 

[ang133]

There's nothing in my events page. In the shared folder, there's the site that I joined to see photos from a trip I took with people. But this seems to be the only dropbox account that I have.

[Walter]

Hey there @ang133 - sorry to jump in, but I just wanted to mention a couple of things here at this point.

Your previous screenshot shows the Dropbox cache folder on your computer - this is not your Dropbox folder where your account's files are stored and is normally hidden. 

The second thing I noticed is the date on the files that are located there. Based on those dates, it seems that you might have deleted those files back in last June so if you're unable to restore them from the cache folder, I'm afraid we won't be able to help much since the files were deleted from our servers so long ago. 

When it comes to your computer's Downloads and Documents folders, could you take a look at their whole folder paths and let us know if Dropbox is included?

[ang133]

Here's what happens when I download or save a file--it will revert to desktop/dropbox/file--so it goes through that open file icon. But then I like to drop down to "This PC" and either go to my downloads file--if it's a download, or save it to one of my document files.  I'm just trying to circumvent dropbox--but it's not really doing that. On June 16, 2023 I tried to find my deleted files online at dropbox but nothing was there. Nor were they in the recycle folder on my desktop. They are somewhere on my harddrive, but in such a damaged state that a program I bought to find them couldn't open them. 

[Walter]

Could you maybe send us a couple of screenshots of what you mentioned in your first sentences so that we can have a visual too @ang133? 

Also, is the Dropbox desktop app installed on your computer at the moment?  If so, what is its exact status and version as shown in your system tray? 

[ang133]

It It does not appear on the tray. It only appears in the apps section of my system. Why it has the February date 2024 I don't know.

[ang133]

The file addresses are what everything defaults to--it goes through the dropbox icon on the desktop--the open file one.

[Walter]

Thanks for the screenshots @ang133 

So it seems that the desktop app is not running at the moment on your computer. Could you please right click on the Documents folder and check its properties and let me know if you're able to fix the folder path from there?