Do you mean
- To persist the programs installed across multiple OS installs, or
- To persist the Dropbox login/folders across multiple OS installs?
this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2025
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Option 2, with more emphasis on the login component. My files are safe, but I don’t wanna bother my buddy to 2FA me every time I need to reinstall Linux for whatever reason.
- Having a separate partition for /home might be sufficient since dropbox keeps the login details in ~/.config
- Use a tool like rclone and run sync manually. Can backup the API key post the in-browser login. If you spend extra effort, you can create a systemd file to automate this as well
Try reinstalling your system in a vm to see what works
All the important login information should just be present somewhere in your home folder. If you back that up and restore it later you should be fine, no need to save the dropbox binary.
If that is no option and you only want to back up dropbox files and nothing else follow the instructions below (I can't guarantee that they will work, but they should):
Back up the whole system, if something goes wrong you can at least restore to a working state. Read the instructions at least once completely before following them.
Look at the documentation for dropbox to see which files are relevant and need backing up. Its the Dropbox folder with all the files, but will probably be some folders/files in your $HOME too, which store login information. Lets hope that they don't store some metadata there that will invalidate the config if it's running on a different machine (to prevent what you are trying to do).
If there is no documentation, you can stop dropbox completely. Look for dropbox processes that don't get stopped when you stop the GUI with something like pgrep -f -i dropbox.
Once you are sure all dropbox processes are stopped run inotifywait -r -m ~. That command wont exit unless you stop it by issuing ^C. It will list all filesystem events in your home directory. Now start dropbox and see which files it accesses, those are the files you need to back up. It will probably be one or more whole directories in ~/.config and ~/.local.
Add those files to a tar archive using something like this: tar cvJf dropbox_config.tar.xz [list of folders...]. Savre the resulting tar file somewhere else, reinstall and extract it using tar xvJf dropbox_config.tar.xz. Take care to run those commands from the same directory.
The dropbox login secrets might also be stored in your system's keyring, if you are using GNOME, then that will be GNOME Keyring. Open your system's credential manager and look for stuff related to dropbox. Look for instructions on how to back up and restore those secets. I don't use that often enough to be able to give you more detailed instructions right now though.
References
- https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/tar.1.html
- https://linux.die.net/man/1/inotifywait
- https://linux.die.net/man/1/pgrep
- https://specifications.freedesktop.org/basedir/latest/
Edit:
- backups
- keyring
Omg thank you. I’m gonna try this out tomorrow
Look for instructions on how to back up and restore those secets. I don’t use that often enough to be able to give you more detailed instructions right now though.
This is what you need OP
https://askubuntu.com/questions/907425/how-do-i-back-up-and-restore-passwords-and-keys
i thought Dropbox was some sort of cloud storage thing. couldn't you just mount it on whatever distros you wanted?
It is; I want to reinstall my OS without losing my Dropbox install
It's possible if you configure your /home/ to use a separate partition. But you would have to do that in advance. Even in that case you'd have to reinstall it but the nice thing about it is you won't have to reconfigure anything. It will be able to get all your previous settings from your home dir.
You could backup your home dir before reinstalling then copy it over after for the same effect.
Of allllll the things you’re worried of losing…. It’s a Dropbox install?
Yes, lol. Long story short,I don’t have the password because it’s a shared account
This is the most important piece of information. You should edit the post and/or title to make this more clear.
Well, that makes a huge difference to the meaning of the question.
I don't know, but maybe the login is held in a dotfile such as ~/.dropbox or maybe in ~/.config/dropbox or similar, and just backing up that (not to Dropbox!) would be enough to restore being logged in on a different system.
New problem: they have 2FA as well
If my suggestion works, that won't matter, it will still be logged in on the new install.
Fix: download what you need locally, reinstall Linux, find a different software or account, be free of this problem forever.
You dont need the install preserved, you need the login session preserved. I doubt that it's even possible
Ah ok. So its not so much the current files that you want to retain, but the ability to receive files locally through sync, when someone else elsewhere makes a change?
Sounds a bit like not wanting to remove the Netflix app because its logged in with the unknown password of an ex.
I would back up all the important files you need before you change anything.
You can generally back up your home folder and use it with another distro, without losing data. (though it can happen that stored settings are not compatible with some changed programs).
All your data is in your home folder.
It is of course possible but you’d likely be causing a big mess on the filesystem. If you’re able to move the install into a home directory, why not just archive what you need and restore it after reinstall? This would be the cleaner way to go about it.
I assume you aren't using an immutable/atomic distro where you can just rebase the OS?
I’m not, I’m on xubuntu at the moment
This is one of the reasons to always prefer docker over bare metal, if it was docker all you had to do is copy the volume over the new installation and starting the service there.