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Forum Discussion
How to speed up Dropbox uploads on iPhone
Dropbox sync only happens when I have the Dropbox iPhone app actively open, and even then it takes about 5 minutes to upload a single photo. This is for camera roll sync.
Hi there, I’m Antonio, a member of the Dropbox Mobile team. I wanted to talk about our upload process on iOS and address its current constraints:
If you are manually uploading files into your Dropbox using the plus (“+”) button, keep in mind that uploads will only run while the app is in the foreground. When the app is backgrounded, Dropbox can only run for a few minutes before the device will stop the process to save battery. To remedy this, we recommend keeping the app open while an upload is in progress.
If you are using the camera uploads feature to automatically upload photos from your Camera Roll to Dropbox, you can turn on “Background Uploading”. This will allow your photos and videos to continue uploading even if you don’t have the app open. Additionally, this feature uses location changes to trigger uploads as you move around throughout the day (this is why we ask you to enable “Location Services” when you enable this feature). Keep in mind that if there isn’t a significant location change after a few minutes, the device will stop the process, and photos or videos will no longer upload in the background.
Syncing can be slower if you have “iCloud Photo Library” enabled on your device, and have enabled “Optimize iPhone Storage” in your iCloud Photo settings. This feature stores high resolution versions of your files to the cloud, and keeps optimized versions of the files on your device. When Dropbox attempts to automatically upload these files, we have to first connect to iCloud’s servers to download the high resolution photo, and then sync that photo to your Dropbox. This can be a slow process that is dependent upon the strength of the server connection to iCloud. Additionally, this process is limited to WiFi-only (even if you have the camera uploads feature enabled over cellular data).
With these constraints in mind, here are some recommendations when uploading your files:
- If you have a desktop with the Dropbox desktop app installed, you can use the desktop camera uploads feature. This automatically transfers any new photos or videos to your Dropbox when you plug your device to your computer (read more about this feature here).
- If you don’t have a desktop, ensure that your Dropbox mobile app has “Background Uploading” enabled for your camera uploads. You can do this by going to the Recents tab, selecting the gear icon, selecting Camera Uploads and toggling the “Background Uploading” switch on.
- When uploading files using the plus (“+”) button, keep the Dropbox app open while the upload is in progress.
We’re always working on improving the background upload experience and greatly appreciate your feedback. We'll keep monitoring this thread and will do our best to reply to any other questions not addressed by this explanation.
@Kyle M. Dropbox's own Carousel app didn't have this problem - the "solution" given earlier in this very discussion by Dropboxer Peio directed users to it, so I think it's fair to say that the problem is with the Dropbox app, not some Apple limitation.
I set my phone not to auto-lock and left it plugged in overnight with the dropbox app running and it uploaded about ten photos total, of the hundreds left in the queue.
Dropbox, this is unacceptable.
It's actually not even syncing at all... It's been 1hour or more that I've done some modification on my file and it still doesn't appear on my phone app... And I've been using dropbox like this for over 2 years and I've never experienced this...The only difference is that I'm now using Windows 10 instead of 7...
Please help.
Vincent
Same problem....any better work around?
This is unbearable! Why cannot you address the issue that causes that much frustration to your premium users? I've been an Android user, then Carousel user. Everything was great. Now I'm stuck with the useless app!
HI, whenever I'm making some modification to my dropbox folders or files on my computer running on Windows 10 It takes ages before my Iphone app got syncronised with my computer... It didn't used to be like this before.. In the past, syncing was almost instantanly... That means I can't find my updated files on my phone whenever I need them.. Also, on windiows 10, i can't see any symbol next to the files or folder that used to show if the file was already synced or not yet (like the red x).. HOw is that?
Thanks,
Vincent
i have several iOS devices. all but my primary (iPhone 6S+) transfers photos to DropBox desktop app just fine... by my primary device gets stuck forever in the importing process and nothing happens.
Any idea what could be going wrong?
(i've tried re-installing the applications on both ends, no success)Thanks!
So are you going to fix this issue? or even answer?
So this is still happening, long after Carousel came and went. Have this increasingly large backlog of files waiting to be uploaded to Dropbox, even making sure my phone is connected to Dropbox at every possible opportunity.
iPhone 5, iOS 9.3
No other device has this problem.
Honestly, I have to say that the problem must be with iPhone. I have a LG V10 and everything uploads SUPER quick, took about 30 secs to upload 4 GB of 4K video this morn. Never had a problem with Dropbox on that phone nor my PC. Lo and behold try to get the same videos from my iPhone 6, it's been 30 minutes and haven't even gotten halfway through the first video. I recall this happening with my 5S about a year ago when I was changing phones... I became so infuriated with the long wait that I just said eff it and threw my pics away with the phone (sadly). Needless to say, Im starting to have a sneaking suspicion that when you try to upload things on iPhone that aren't through Apple specific apps, iOS is slowing down the process. Purposely. And if that is true, it is absolutely unfair to the customer.
