[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?
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.