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:
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.
Hi ,
If uploads from the Dropbox app are progressing slowly, there are a couple of workarounds you can use to get through the uploads that are remaining:
1) You can try Dropbox's Carousel app (free in the App Store), as we've optimized the Camera Upload feature for that app. Automatic Backup from Carousel will still go into the Camera Uploads folder in your Dropbox.
You can read more about and download Carousel here:
https://blog.dropbox.com/2014/04/introducing-carousel https://www.carousel.com
2) You can use the desktop client to quickly download your remaining items. If you enable Camera Upload from the Dropbox desktop application, your photos and videos will automatically upload whenever you plug your mobile device into your computer.
To enable Camera Upload from the desktop client, please follow these steps:
Make sure you have the most recent version of the desktop client installed. You can download it here: https://dropbox.com/install
Click on the small Dropbox icon in your menu bar or system tray. Click on the gear in the Notifications pane. Select Preferences. Click on the “import” tab.
Check the box that says “Enable camera uploads.” You can set it to upload only photos, or both photos and videos.
The next time you plug in your phone, you will be asked whether you want to import your photos and videos from that device to Dropbox. Click yes, and Camera Upload will run! Any time you plug that device in to your computer, Dropbox will automatically check for and upload new photos and videos.
You can read more about desktop Camera Upload on our Help Center:https://help.dropbox.com/photos-videos/camera-uploads-overview
I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any questions.
Regards,Peio
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
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.
Fix this! Drip drip drip- upload is unbearably slow! Erlich
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.
Sooo true! I mean come on! First I couldn't believe Carousel was going to vanish and the I have to realise that the drop box app is bullshizzle for photouploads? I am no longer giving money to a company while other do a better job for free....
this is to slow, i have had pro for years now, if you can fix i will move on to something else
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.
@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.
When carousel was introduced, there was much criticism about why a separate app was needed, but to be fair it worked really well. It was quick and didn't suffer from the "Dropbox has paused upload" messages.
Now that it has been retired, you would have thought that this good code would have been integrated back into Dropbox, but sadly it clearly hasn't and if anything things have got worse. It's painfully slow and isn't using the available bandwidth, and we're back to having to keep re-opening Dropbox to keep things going, even though background upload is on and so is location services.
How can it be that the feature (instant, fast upload) that was working perfectly before is now broken?
Same problem....any better work around?
Same problem. Carousel work fabulously, the iOS Camera Upload feature takes an age. Background barely works, it might work for about 2 minutes after switching to another app. At this point, I wait until it is time to go to bed, turn off automated screen locking, plug in the charger and then open the app. Maybe 8 hours later my 1 minute 25 second video will be uploaded when I wake up in the morning.
Ridiculous, especially since you had this all worked out with Carousel.
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!
Where is DrioBox Solution to this?????? Itsinfuriating and unbearable as carousel worked so perfect!! I would pay for carousel to return!!!
This is ridiculous. Took me 4 hours to upload 20 photos and not it's stuck on 9 photos remaining for several days now. WTF dropbox?
I'm having the same issue. In the iOS app, it takes a while when it moves to the next picture to upload before the upload bar starts progressing, When the progress bar starts, it goes very quickly, but it takes a long time to start progressing. It is almost as if it is doing some sort of processing or something. I wonder if it has to do with the large number of pictures on my camera roll. I have ~45k pics in there. I have iCloud Photos turned on so they're not all actually on my phone, but DB may still have to do some sort of processing where as the number of photos increases, the "processing time" also increases. Just a theory.
For me, Dropbox always uploads all the images first before the videos, even if they are newer. The images actually upload reasonably fast (in the order of seconds, maybe because they are small). My upload backlog seems to comprise entirely of videos.
So my contribution towards the theory is that the files are being uploaded in order according to file size from small to large.
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.
Seriously, I'm having the same problem as all these people and have been a Dropbox pro customer for nearly 2 years now. I have over 500 photos in the queue for upload and every time I visit my iPhone app the queue is like 1 photo less and counting. Background uploading ? HA! There is NO difference with that engaged whatsoever. I'm on the verge of migrating to Google driver or another competitor for the same or cheaper rate for cloud storage. Not to mention the slow download ' stream of my data when I want to show my family photos on my mobile devices.
Dropbox FIX THIS or you're losing another customer.
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!
Echo all of the above, what's the point of an auto back up cloud service that doesn't back up?
Same on my iPhone.
Dropbox, I want carousel back on my phone!
Ditto. I can't stand the slow uploads. Also, unlike Carousel, the Dropbox app requires me to share my location in order to do background uploading. WHY?!?! I won't enable background uploading because of this silly requirement, which means that if I want to backup videos I have to either dig into my phone's settings and disable sleep, or sit next to my phone and tap it every so often to keep it awake. Ugh.
I switched to Dropbox Pro because Carousel was so good and my primary use is backing up family photos. But now that it's gone, and Dropbox is so painfully slow, I'm looking for an alternative for me and a few family members.
SERIOUSLY why is this still such an issue? Carousel was so fast and then it went away. Seriously going to stop using dropbox if this issue is not addressed soon.
Tick tick.... Still waiting for a response from Dropbox tech support on this.... And the comments continue to grow...
Listen up Dropbox! I have a theory:You guys have no balls at all! I assert that Apple has made you close down Carousel because it was better than iCloud Foto sync and to go even further they have made you make the wireless upload rediculously slow and faulty... Say what you want but you guys can not be that ultra bad in programming...For all of the people that want to stay with this boneless piece of cloud-provider, allthough everyone should leave dropbox like a rat leaves a sinking ship, use a cable to sync your photos to the box. And last but not least: stay smooth
Google photo backup works. Still dont understand as others here mention why this "key" feature is so poor. It seems to me this should be a core functional tool?
It's crazy that on a 4G connection that's 50mbs up speed it takes about an hour to upload a 200mb photo. I didn't really think Carousel did it much quicker, all in all it's just S.A.F.
A fix would be great.
As would the background uploading. Carousel at least did this great. Dropbox times out after a few minutes meaning you have to disable sleep on the phone or sit there and wake it every couple of minutes.
Plugging in to a computer is not a solution. This removes the mobile part of the mobile app.
This is seriously ridiculous! Is there any way to get this to go faster? I've been going on DAYS to upload one video and I can't wipe out my iPhone photos as I'm not sure which ones have uploaded and which have not. Please help!
