[Edit] To answer my question, yes, Dropbox does indeed store its application information in your user’s /home folder by default. As long as you don’t wipe your /home folder, you should be good to go once you reinstall the Dropbox app after reformatting/reinstalling your distro (Tested with a few Fedora-based distros, YMMV if you use Debian/Arch). I didn’t have to re-login; the Dropbox app just worked.

Is it possible to reinstall Linux (or distro hop) without losing my Dropbox install? Could I move the Dropbox install to my home folder so it survives the OS install?

  • giacomo@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    7·
    4 months ago

    i thought Dropbox was some sort of cloud storage thing. couldn’t you just mount it on whatever distros you wanted?

      • Goku@lemmy.world
        1·
        4 months ago

        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.

  • kunaltyagi@programming.dev
    3·
    4 months ago

    Do you mean

    1. To persist the programs installed across multiple OS installs, or
    2. To persist the Dropbox login/folders across multiple OS installs?
    • Horsey@lemmy.worldOP
      1·
      4 months ago

      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.

      • kunaltyagi@programming.dev
        2·
        4 months ago
        1. Having a separate partition for /home might be sufficient since dropbox keeps the login details in ~/.config
        2. 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
  • aarch0x40@lemmy.worldEnglish
    41·
    4 months ago

    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.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
    23·
    4 months ago

    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.