Ubuntu – How to prevent Dropbox from being automatically added to the autostart list after launching it

That is different solution, which works in Ubuntu 11.10:

You will need start-up script. Save it to /etc/init.d/dropbox

groupadd dropbox
usermod -aG dropbox root
chmod +x /etc/init.d/dropbox
update-rc.d dropbox defaults

Change root in second code line above with your needs. Make sure you don't forget the -a switch in usermod - especially when you use

Run Dropbox manually for first time

/root/.dropbox-dist/dropbox

Change command above with your environment.

Copy URL it gives you (do not stop or interrupt program, just copy URL). Paste the URL to the Browser, confirm password. You will see Dropbox confirmation, that it is connected. Now you can interrupt Dropbox by Ctrl+C. Reboot to try autostart. If it not starts, run Dropbox manually once again and look up for any messages or errors.

Click on the dropbox icon on the top of your screen, hit "preferences" and tick the button where it says "Start dropbox on system startup" in the "general" tab.

If this doesn't work do it command line way :)

Create /etc/init.d/dropbox

#!/bin/sh
#dropbox service
DROPBOX_USERS="user1 user2"

DAEMON=.dropbox-dist/dropbox

start() {
   echo "Starting dropbox..."
   for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
       HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $dbuser | cut -d: -f6`
       if [ -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON ]; then
           HOME="$HOMEDIR" start-stop-daemon -b -o -c $dbuser -S -u $dbuser -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON
       fi
   done
}

stop() {
   echo "Stopping dropbox..."
   for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
       HOMEDIR=`getent passwd $dbuser | cut -d: -f6`
       if [ -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON ]; then
           start-stop-daemon -o -c $dbuser -K -u $dbuser -x $HOMEDIR/$DAEMON
       fi
   done
}

status() {
   for dbuser in $DROPBOX_USERS; do
       dbpid=`pgrep -u $dbuser dropbox`
       if [ -z $dbpid ] ; then
           echo "dropboxd for USER $dbuser: not running."
       else
           echo "dropboxd for USER $dbuser: running (pid $dbpid)"
       fi
   done
}

case "$1" in

   start)
       start
       ;;
   stop)
       stop
       ;;
   restart|reload|force-reload)
       stop
       start
       ;;
   status)
       status
       ;;
   *)
       echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/dropbox {start|stop|reload|force-reload|restart|status}"
       exit 1

esac

exit 0

Make sure to change line 3 to your computer username not the dropbox user DROPBOX_USERS="user1 user2"

and on line 5 make sure you got the right execute file in dropbox-dist

'DAEMON=.dropbox-dist/dropbox'

mine had to be DAEMON=.dropbox-dist/dropboxd

Then make the script executable and add it to the system startup:

sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/dropbox 
sudo update-rc.d dropbox defaults

you can test the script by writing

sudo /etc/init.d/dropbox start