Run two dropbox account at a time on Ubuntu

I started from a position of having a working first account (mine).

First step is to move the existing account, and get it working …

So you can probably replace “me” and “other” in the commands below with “personal” and “business” or whatever you want to call them.

1] Stop the existing dropbox daemon running.

2] rename existing account .dropbox folder

Code:

mv ~/.dropbox ~/.dropbox-me

3] create a new bash script ‘start-dropbox-me.sh’, containing the following:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
HOME=/home/me/.dropbox-me /home/me/.dropbox-dist/dropbox start -i

Note that I found that pointing to /home/me/.dropbox-dist/dropbox made the difference – using the one in /usr/bin caused the same error you are seeing. I’m not really sure why, I was just experimenting and it worked.

4] and make it runnable:

Code:

chmod 775 start-dropbox-me.sh

5] use “system->preferences->startup applications” to add this script as a startup application. (actually, I edited the existing dropbox startup application to point at this script).

I now had a running dropbox after restart (or just running the bash script).

Second step is to configure the new account (for “other”):

6] create a new bash script ‘start-dropbox-other.sh’, containing the following:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
HOME=/home/me/.dropbox-other /home/me/.dropbox-dist/dropbox start -i

7] and make it runnable:

Code:

chmod 775 start-dropbox-other.sh

8] run this script, and follow usual registration (or existing account) process, to get it configured. Using a different location that the first account.

[at this point I had two working dropbox accounts]

9] use “system->preferences->startup applications” to add this other script as a startup application.

Restarted the PC and it all came back with the two dropbox Icons on the panel, etc.

Hope this works for you.