How to uninstall Dropbox on a Mac

What you keep and what you lose

Dropbox's help is plain that uninstalling the app does not delete your Dropbox account, so what is stored in it stays there. What sits only on the Mac is the Dropbox folder, which the uninstall leaves where it is. Dropbox's warning before removing it is to make sure you have a backup of your data in another location.

With Dropbox for macOS on File Provider, the folder lives in ~/Library/CloudStorage, under Locations in the Finder sidebar. Online-only files there take no disk space; only files marked Make available offline do. So the space an uninstall gives back is the offline files, not the size of your whole Dropbox.

Uninstall Dropbox

1. Click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar.
2. Click your avatar (your picture or initials) in the bottom-left corner, and click Quit.
3. Open Finder and click Applications.
4. Drag Dropbox to the Trash, and empty the Trash.
5. If you also want the files off this Mac, drag your Dropbox folder to the Trash, once the backup above is done.

Dropbox Update, the process that keeps the app up to date, needs nothing separate: Dropbox's own answer for not running it is to uninstall the app. Some Macs end up with two copies of the Dropbox app, which Dropbox says can cause syncing problems; if you have a second one, remove it the same way.

If it will not uninstall

Dropbox's advice is to open Activity Monitor, quit any Dropbox apps or processes still running, and then repeat the steps above.

The pieces it leaves behind

Dropbox's advanced-reinstall steps, for when the app needs removing completely, restart the Mac after the app is in the Trash and then move two more things aside: the hidden settings folder in your home folder, and its helper tools in the system Library. In Terminal, one line at a time, giving your Mac's administrator password (not your Dropbox password):

sudo mv ~/.dropbox ~/.Trash/dropbox.old
sudo mv /Library/DropboxHelperTools ~/DropboxHelperTools.old

Both lines move rather than delete. The first puts the settings folder in your Trash; the second leaves DropboxHelperTools.old in your home folder, where you can drag it to the Trash once you are sure you are done. Dropbox notes that this removes your previous Dropbox preferences and configuration, which is the point when you are leaving. Its steps also reset the ownership of the Dropbox folder; that matters only for a reinstall. For anything else named after Dropbox in your Library, search by its bundle ID, as the leftover files after uninstalling an app describes.

Where the app comes in

RefreshYourMac has no Dropbox category, so the uninstall itself is Dropbox's job, with the steps above. Its Uninstall an App, described in how to uninstall apps on a Mac, searches both Library folders by the bundle IDs of an app and its helpers and lists every piece with its size before anything moves; your own files go to the Trash, and root-owned ones are removed only after the password prompt. It never claims a folder on the strength of the name Dropbox alone, and it does not look in the CloudStorage folder or in hidden folders in your home folder, so your Dropbox folder is never part of the plan and ~/.dropbox stays a hand job. Uninstall an App is in the download edition, not the Mac App Store edition.