How to completely reset Dropbox

[kchessell]

I deleted a vast number of files and folders from my dropbox account and then had a problem where the PC sync process has been running for weeks.  I have cleared both the PC and online dropbox stores almost completely yet still the sync process is running continuously. Is there a way to completely reset  the system and start with empty storage?  I can clear everything to local storage and then put back what I want to save?

Thanks Keith

[Walter]

Hey there @kchessell, sorry to hear about this.

Can you please try reinstalling our desktop app and let me know how it goes?

Thanks a bunch!

[tiasg]

I too have an issue with Dropbox which I can't seem to resolve, and I too would like to clear my data (or at least my external backed up drive) to perform a new sync. I can't seem to find a good way to do this either.

[kchessell]

Hi Walter,

I uninstalled and reinstalled dropbox, still the same symptoms, dropbox starts runs for an hour or so syncing over a million files that now don't exist anywhere, crashes and restarts.  I would be ok with both online and offline stores being completely wiped clear.  Then starting afresh.

Thanks Keith

[Walter]

In that case, can you also attempt a clean, advanced reinstall?

If the same issue occurs, please send me a screenshot so that I can have a visual too. 

Thanks so much, Keith!

EDIT: @tiasg If you enabled the computer backup, you'll need to disable it using these steps. Uninstalling or reinstalling the desktop app wouldn't help much in this case. 

[kchessell · Accepted solution]

That seems to have worked thanks.  It would be good if there was a tool to fix the registry as there were 10s of dropbox entries everywhere and it took about 30 minutes to clear.

Regards Keith

[Walter]

Glad to hear you're back up and running and thanks for keeping us in the loop too, Keith.

See you around the Community and take care!
 

PS: If you have any feature requests or suggestions for our dev team, you can always post them in our Share an idea board. 

[Walter]

Glad to hear you're back up and running and thanks for keeping us in the loop too, Keith.

See you around the Community and take care!
 

PS: If you have any feature requests or suggestions for our dev team, you can always post them in our Share an idea board. 

[mariusring]

I'm posting this for others in my situation for see. For a few months I've had syncing issues because dropbox was trying to sync files on a mounted drive (that i'd "placed" in my dropbox) that I was no longer using. I had a few thousand unsynced files constantly, but the real issue was that my dropbox was now only irregularly syncing other files, which became a big headache due to having several shared folders. I tried a lot of things, like re-instaling, deleting cache, re-naming folders, deleting folders (both locally and on the website), and nothing worked. In the end, what worked was to do an "advanced reinstall", which includes an uninstall, some commands in the terminal, and a comprehensive install. It's described here: https://help.dropbox.com/installs/advanced-reinstall

This is what fixed it for me, perhaps along with deleting and renaming other folders that had syncing issues.