Is this possible? I know how to selectively sync on my computer, but I can't figure out how to do so on my ipad. HELP!
Hi Karen!Indeed, you can't do a Selective Sync on your iPad... Because your files are not stored locally on your tablet!The app on your tablet works more like the website https://www.dropbox.com.It enables you to see your files, but only downloads them if you 'favorite' them (star).So, as the files re not natively taking space on your iPad, there is no need for selective sync.
I have the same question. Does anyone have a solution?
Hey Deane!
I replied to the question previously - the files on your phone are not stored locally, so there is no need to use selective sync.The app works like the website, where you can see your files and download them, but they are not stored on your device.
I desperately need a proper solution for this.
Current situation:
At the moment since I need a selective synch functionality on my iPad, I using the Documents app by Readdle with my Dropbox. Documents lets you set up a two-way synch folder with any Dropbox folder. It works okay, but is unreliable when you are synching a folder with sub-folders. It also requires a lot of steps. This is now becoming a major frustration since I need to manage thousands of digital photos while I am travelling and not linked to the internet.
My workflow is:
Offline: Daily transfer photos from my camera to my iPad, often for a month at a time.
Offline, when I have down time: Sort through hundreds of photos on my iPad, comparing them side by side (currently impossible on an iPad), discarding ones I don't need, then organizing the remainder into the hierarchical folder structure I have already setup in on my Dropbox server. (note: I am creating new folders)
Offline: when I have down time: Do the same step 2 with my iPhone photos.
Online, when I get to an Wifi spot : Selectively synch the various new folders I have created to my Dropbox folder so I have a backup on the cloud.
Online, when I get back home: Selectively synch specific folders to various main office desktop computers for different work tasks.
Problems:
Apple's iPhoto is unusable because it does not have a hierarchical filing system, and iCloud does not have selective synch.
Dropbox is unusable because you cannot organize photos into folders if you are offline, which is when I need to do the organization. It is also poor for comparing photos side by side, and cumbersome for copying photos from one folder to another (need the side by side windows functionality in the OS/X app called PathFinder in order to do this easily).
Dropbox plus Readdle is a workaround, but extremely cumbersome and unreliable when you are synching a folder with subfolders.
Question:
It seems to me that anyone who is doing any serious data management with Dropbox, and using tablet devices must be having the same frustrations. Is Dropbox working on fixing this issue?
I am also looking for a solution. My problem is that I have a long list of folders that contain various files, when I no longer need them remotely I want to clear them from the list so I don't have to page through them to find what I want. I need to keep them available to the office machines, so don't want to move them to some other folder. Selective sync allows me to accomplish this on my laptops, but I can't do it on my ipad.
Hi Barry and Timothy!
I just want to clarify a couple of details about the Selective Sync feature.
The Selective sync feature has been developed only for computers, because Dropbox files are stored locally on computers. It allows you to keep your files on Dropbox without having to save them locally on your device.
There was no reason to develop selective sync on a tablet or a smartphone, because the files are not stored locally on these devices by default. If you didn't want to have your file stored locally on the mobile app, you could just need to un-favorite the file.
In a nutshell, it works the other way round on computer and on mobile devices.
Now, Barry, I totally understand your frustration considering the way you need to use of Dropbox, even though it's a use case that is different from a Selective sync issue, but more a way of better organising favorites and to download / unfavorite them locally in bulk.
As a consequence, I've passed your request along to our mobile team to be able to organise the favorites by folder to access them online, that you could bulk download when you need them, as well as better data management.
Your detailed description of how you use Dropbox is extremely helpful, so a big thank you
Timothy, your feature request is also slightly different, as Selective sync is only for a specific device and doesn't allow you to change the files stored locally remotely. You have to change the selective settings on the device you want them to be applicable, and not from another device.
I guess you would also like to be able to organise offline favorites by folder, but you also want to be able to change the favorite settings remotely, and by folder (instead of 'by file'). I also forwarded this feature request to our iOS team.
Thank you both for your feedbacks, this is super useful forus to know how our users are using our products, and how we can improve them!
Dropbox really needs a selective sync option on iOS. Its a shame that we have to resort to other cloud storage services just to control that feature in our business, when we already pay for Pro.
Hey Mikhail!
Could you give me more infos about how you'd like to use the Dropbox app on iOS?
Thanks
Hi, thanks for the quick response.
We use Dropbox in a small sales lot for photos/projects/studies/etc. Biggest issue is that we have many devices and having all data/pictures/documents sync to the mobile device makes things complicated for others to search through. Any sensitive data is stored as encrypted archives and that's not what we're attempting to do. Right now, Dropbox is the easiest, most intuitive to use cloud-based collaboration package for us, we don't need the complexity of OneDrive/Office (though we use that for some things) or other services, The simplicity and ease-of-use and sharing is what keeps us on Dropbox. But, having all the data sync across all devices clutters each user's mobile device when it shouldn't have to, it makes finding things and getting things done very frustrating. On PC/Mac, selective sync allows us to decide what folders each user can see when using Dropbox.
Using "Favorite" would not work for us as we need data uploaded to the devices and ready for viewing as soon as it's added.
Selective sync is not a replacement for proper privacy or security, Dropbox for business does that (I beleive), but we're just asking for a tool to organize our Dropbox.
Hey Mikhail,
Thanks for your reply.
So it's not a matter of space, but of organisation - got it.
I would recommend to have a handy file organisation.
I guess that each of you have their own Dropbox account in your organisation, and that you have shared folders across the different accounts.
Keep in mind that you can organise your shared folders inside your own folders the way you want.
That way, you can organise your Dropbox folder the way you want, and then access your organised folders to find your files easily on your mobile device.
The file structure is the same on mobile than on the client to make your life easier (and to avoid panic when you can't find a file!!).
In addition, you also have a search feature on mobile that is very useful to find your files. We also added a "recent" feature on iOS, so that you can see the files that were last added or edited by you.
Have a great Tuesday!
Laureline,
If I read you correctly above you said my issue was about a "way of better organising favorites and to download / unfavorite them locally in bulk". This is not what I am asking for. I probably did not explain it clearly enough.
The main point of my request is that I want to add and organise into folders some photos locally on my iPad that have never been on my computer (rather they have just been transferred from my camera to my iPad). Then at a later date synch just those new folders back to my computer at a later date.
This is just how selective synch currently works on every machine. I just want it to work like that on my iPad. You don't need to invent any more features. Just be consistent about the implementation of the features you already have created.
I don't see the point of having a favourites feature since you can accomplish the same thing by putting the files you want on your iPad into a separate folder and then simply selectively synch that folder. Adding a new feature to accomplish that (favourites) only serves to increase the cognitive overload in using Dropbox.
The great thing and selling point about Dropbox (before you started adding features I might add, was its extremely simple operation and focused functionality (and as a result an extremely low cognitive overload = high degree of usability). Since dropbox's initial concept is so simple, adding that favourites feature was a big percentage increase in cognitive overload, and correspondingly large percentage decrease in usability). If you can use the existing feature (selective synch) to perform some function, it does not make any sense to add a new feature to do a similar task. I am referencing the work of Jakob Nielsen here on User Interface Design: see http://www.nngroup.com/articles/minimize-cognitive-load/. His research into User Interface design is very relevant to your development plans.
Thanks for listening to our input.
Barry
You can other tools to selectively sync photos from computer onto iPad. There are a lot on Google, you can search it and have a try!
If Dropbox files are not saved on mobile devices, why does my phone says Dropbox is taking up 10GB of space? Thanks
If Dropbox files are not saved on mobile devices, why does my phone says Dropbox is taking up 10GB of space?
Not saved permanently... Files you access on the device will be cached temporarily, and any files you mark as available offline will be stored for as long as they are marked that way.
Desperatley need folder syncing for ios. When you have large folder strutures full of lots of files it is impossible to manage by having to find new files and make them available offline.
please fix this
In our organization, we use one Dropbox account for all our people. Each user has their own designated folder for their work. It would be extremely useful to have folder sync on mobile devices so that people don't have to search through a mess of files and photos just to find what they need.
Folder sync would on mobile would enable Dropbox to be used in an organized and professional way, and would make an okay sharing tool into a powerful tool-set. Dropbox makes sharing and group collaboration very easy and fluid, people love it because of that. It seems somewhat backwards to be pushed to switch to more complicated software just to make something else easier.
Hi
ios photos app allow organising your photos in to albums
id like to be able to select only certain albums for Dropbox upload
possible ?
So no solution yet? If we have lots of pdf's, images etc we have to manually synch each one of them on our iPads and then try to find them in a big list of shortened file names with no organization or structure whatsoever?
I really think dropbox should provide a better functionality on this subject.
The way it is does not seem to meet Dropbox standards.
I am using Documents by Readdle until DropBox can get this sorted out. It works, but is unecessarily time consuming. I can have two-way selective synchronisation with a folder just like I can do with DropBox on all my other devices. I am synching all my travel related Drobbox folders with my iPhone and iPad in this way.
However I cannot for the life of me understand why Dropbox is forcing me to use such a convoluted approach and have to use a third-party app to do what should logically be done inside of the Dropbox app. It is completely inconsistent. They seem such a good company otherwise.
Please get to work on this Dropbox and make the app work consistently with how Dropbox works on all my other computers. I don't want to be forced to cancel my DropbBox account and use iCloud!!
Old thread but I'm also going to point out that despite not using storage on the iPad, tablets are typically used by everyone in a given household. In my case, I'd prefer that my work-related files, my banking info and other personal data not be available to all users. There's always the off-chance that they might delete one of them or that there may be some information in one of the files that I want kept private. Selective sync isn't just useful for storage issues. I just upgraded today to Dropbox Pro and I'm deeply disappointed that this feature doesn't exist for iOS. I'm going to have to remove the app from my family iPad until the feature is available.
There's always the off-chance that they might delete one of them or that there may be some information in one of the files that I want kept private.
Secure the app with a passcode in Settings.
Didn't even know that was a possibility. Thank you! This saves me so much hassle.
Although I still think selective sync would be a better solution. Just want to stay on record that I think it should be added to iOS eventually, although passcode-locking the app will work for now.
If selective folder sync was an unique concept then I would understand the resistance from Dropbox. But this feature already exists on Dropbox for Windows, OS X and Linux variants. The constant re-phrasing of the same, canned responses and rewording the same question doesn't give us much hope that anyone is actually listening.
It seems that what most of the users here are asking is for same exact feature that's available on PC; selective folder sync.
We just want to be able to choose what folders get synced to the mobile device.
"Secure the app with a passcode in Settings."That still doesn't enable selective folder sync. Setting a passcode will only lock people out from accessing the app, it does not enable organization.
Let's say I have a Dropbox account on three devices; my Macbook, my daughter's phone and my wife's iPad. We all sync photos that Dropbox grabs from the camera/gallery/downloads/etc. I also store lots of drawings, documents and photos from my work. And my wife and daughter use Dropbox for school and hobbies. I don't need to lock them out, they're all responsible adults.
We all use the same Dropbox Pro account because we have lot's of storage and is very convenient. My wife and daughter don't need (or want) to see my work files. I don't really care what things my daughter and wife save to their folders. Now, on my Macbook, I can simply uncheck the files I don't want synced and they won't show up. The problem is Dropbox on our mobile devices.My daughter is always saving and deleting her school work or photos of her friends, etc...add in all of my work files and personal backups that I constantly update, and now Dropbox on mobile is extremely cluttered. None of us would deliberately delete each other's files but because there is no way to organize the mess, it's just always a possibility.
I use a Dropbox Pro account with some of my colleges. We use a passcode on all our devices that have a Dropbox account but that is only to keep unwanted users out. We need to be able to pull up Dropbox and go directly to the information we need to, in any given moment. We don't really have the time to stand around with a customer for several minutes saying "just a few more minutes sir". Our customers are not as patient as yours Dropbox.
But that feature is only needed on devices that store your data. It's purpose is to prevent folders from syncing to a computer. As a mobile device does not sync folders, Selective Sync is not needed.
Folders do not get synced to a mobile device. A mobile device does not sync data like a computer does therefore there's no need for the same feature that the Dropbox computer clients have. You want to be able to control what data is stored or not stored on your mobile device, but Selective Sync IS NOT that feature. It would be a completely different feature with a different purpose from what Selective Sync is and what it's purpose is.
It wasn't suggested as a means of providing Selective Sync. It was suggested as a means to prevent others from accessing your data, which Rick was unaware of.
Mikhail, Well said! I have a feeling no-one is listening on this site. I've been waiting a year now, and nothing has happened.
Dropbox, are you there?
Rich R. I think there are two different issues being confused here.
Application 1
The ability to selective synch a folder on the dropbox cloud to IOS so you can have a local copy and also can have your local folder changes automatically propagated to your master dropbox folder and vice versa
Application 2
The ability to protect files downloaded (copied) from the dropbox cloud.
The majority of people here are asking for application 1, which is what this thread is all about: dropbox's main core function. There are other ways of achieving application 2, and we do not need dropbox for that.
Barry, I would add another one:
Application 3
The ability to selective synch folders even if it is just for reading from (and not writing to) the files. The way it's done is a mess.
Let me explain better: suppose you have a folder called Tech Articles that contais lots of PDF files. And then you have a folder called Vacation Maps where you put some Google Maps screenshots. You have also a Old Books folder with loads of PDFs. And some more folders with some interviews recorded as mp3 files.With selective synch all the files are listed in a single list, with no folders whatsoever for you to navigate through. Just a huge list of PDF, MP3 and PNG files.
If you want to find a given PDF you will have to sort it out from hundreds of other files.
With selective synch all the files are listed in a single list, with no folders whatsoever for you to navigate through. Just a huge list of PDF, MP3 and PNG files.
That is not Selective Sync. It is Offline Files.
Rich, yes, you are wright, I confused the terminology. But the rest still makes sense, doesn't it? Thanks for pointing that out.
But the rest still makes sense, doesn't it?
Yes, it does. I'm just trying to stress the point that it is not Selective Sync that you're all asking for. That feature already exists and does not do (nor is it intended to do) what everyone here wants. I'm stressing this point so as to not confuse other people that come here looking for similar features, and going away thinking Selective Sync is what they want.
