Does Dropbox store my password on my computer?
2014-04
Questioner
About a year ago I changed my Dropbox password and lost access to the email address my Dropbox account was associated with in the same day due to a rather acrimonious end to my employment.
I almost immediately forgot the password without writing it down but not before signing on with my computer. I am still able to use Dropbox with this computer and even get on the site but I can't change the email address or password to it because I don't have either of them any longer.
Unfortunately Dropbox ignores my repeated requests for assistance.
So I was thinking maybe the password is stored somewhere on my Mac. I have looked through the application files as much as I know how to navigate and have not seen anything related to a login yet. I also looked in my keychain and it wasn't there either.
Does anyone have any ideas how to find this? I don't want to get a new account. I have a lot of free space and a sweet grandfathered rate for my upgrade.
Karan Raj Baruah
Even if it were stored it would be in an encrypted form which will be pretty difficult to decrypt and recover your password in plain text.
You should email Dropbox support in detail and explain in detail of how you lost access. They are the only people who can help you here to get it back.
itconlor
There is and there should be no way to recover your password, since this would mean it could be hacked. At least it should be this way if Dropbox is taking security serious.
They can never be sure if the person requesting access to the account is the same person that created the account since the only link is your Email and Password.
Getting a new account, maybe with the old rate will be the only way, since then Dropbox can be sure that you only have access to data that is yours because its on your computer.
GummiV
I started using Keepass about a month ago to hold my passwords and online accounts info. Everything was stored in a single .kdb file, only protected with a password. I'm using Windows 7.
Now Keepass can't open my .kdb file with the error "Invalid/wrong key".
I'm fairly confident I have the right password. Altough I might have mixed up a few letters I've tried about two dozen different combinations to minimize that possibility - but can't rule it out though.
My guess is however that the .kdb file got corrupted, either due to Dropbox syncing (only using it on one computer though) or because I edited the file using KeePassX on Ubuntu (dual boot on the same computer, accessing a mounted Win7 NTFS partition), or possibly a combination of both.
I have tried restoring older versions(even the original one) from Dropbox and trying out all possible passwords without any luck. (which does seem to rule out KeePassX as the culprit, since oldest copies are before I edited the file from Ubuntu) I have tried opening the file with the "Repair KeePass Database file" which always gives the "0xA Invalid/corrupt file structure" (the same error for when a wrong password is typed).
I was wondering if there was any way for me to salvage my hard-gathered data. I know generally that brute force cracking is not feasible, but since I can remember probably more than half of the usernames/passwords, any maybe the fact that one of them does come up fairly often (my go-to pass for trivial stuff), that might simplify the brute force process to a doable time frame. Maybe the brute-force thing might incorporate the fact that I know the password length and what characters it's made from. (If we assume corruption, not a password-blackout on my part)
I could do some programming if there are any libraries or routines that I could use.
Other people seem to have had a similar probem
http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=6199
http://forums.dropbox.com/topic.php?id=9139
http://www.keepassx.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1967&f=1
So hopefully this question will become a suitible resource for people when searching the web.
Feel free to tell me if you think this should rather be a community wiki.
GmonC
Did you try to restore the first version from your kdb file from your dropbox account using the web interface, or it isn't available anymore? The first uploaded version shouldn't have any errors.
(I usually use the same binary Keepass version on different systems, using WINE (Keepass 1.x) or Mono (Keepass 2.x). I don't use third party implementations on the same .kdb/.kdbx, since I was afraid of the same corruption that is haunting you now)
DMA57361
Have you tried accessing the file with the DropBox process disabled?
Or downloading the file from the website to another location entirely?
I have a FreeOTFE volume I keep in DropBox and it's often impossible to mount with the DropBox syncing software running. As soon as I switch the software off - problem solved.