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File/Video won't save to iPad or iPhone

sarah2023

Hi - When using the Dropbox App on my iPhone or iPad, I want to download or save the video. I select 'save video', it starts the download process and when its finished I get the error message "Sorry, this type of video cannot be saved to this device." It is an mp4 video which I used to be able to save with no issues. I can download it using my computer but not using the mobile app. Looking for some help with this please. Thank you!

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sarah2023

I forgot to add, if I don't get the error message, where does the file go? It's not in my PHOTOS....thanks!

Hannah

Hey @sarah2023, thanks for bringing this to our attention.

I just tested this on my own device and I'm not having this issue.

How large (in size) are the videos you're trying to download?

Can you open the Dropbox app, tap on "account", then on the gear icon and then on "clear cache", to see if that helps?

As for the downloaded videos, they should appear in your camera roll.

sarah2023

Hi Hannah - thank you for the reply. I cleared the cache and it seemed to work on my iPhone but it doesn't appear in my Camera Roll? I can't find it anywhere...is there something else I can do? Thanks again!

Hannah

Hey Sarah! I'm happy to see that clearing the cache helped.

In my case, the video I downloaded, went to Photos, but was this video taken with your phone?

Where was it initially uploaded from? Could it be somewhere in your Files app?

sarah2023

The file was created by someone else and added to a shared folder. It is not located anywhere on my device as I have used Search for the file…. I used to be able to just save the file and it would be in my camera roll but that is nolonger happening for myself or my husband that is having the exact same issues.

Nancy

Hi @sarah2023! I hope you’re doing well.

Can you please clarify what’s the exact OS version of your iOS device?

sarah2023

All devices I (we) are using are up to date. iPad is 16.2 and iPhone is 16.2 as well.

Hannah

Hmm, can you try to save another video again, as a test, and let me know what happens with that?

sarah2023

Hi Hannah,

I tried it with a couple other different video files and the same issue. They download but don’t show up in the camera roll or anywhere on my device.

Megan

Hi @sarah2023, I know that this might sound trivial, but have you tried restarting your phone?

If I were you, I'd uninstall the app, reboot and install again. Can you give it a go, please?

sarah2023

That is actually the first thing I did on both my phone and iPad…the only thing that has done anything is clearing the cache so I can at least download…its just finding the darn files or getting them to go to camera roll…

Megan

Hi @sarah2023, one more thing for us to check.

Do you have enough space on the device, in order to save the file?

sarah2023

I never thought of that one! But I just checked and I have almost 2TB of storage available so that is not the issue…

I really appreciate all your troubleshooting and hopefully we figure this out.

Jay

Hi @sarah2023, just for clarification, my colleague was asking about the space on your mobile itself, and not the quota on the site.

sarah2023

Hi - I have used 100GB of 2 TB on my iPad…is this what you mean?

Hannah

Hey Sarah!

Jay is actually referring to the storage space of your device, not your Dropbox account.

If you go to your device's Settings > General > iPad storage, do you see that you have at least 500MB of space available there?

sarah2023

Hi Jay, The space I quoted is what is on my actual device (iPad Pro) and not the site…I went into my settings and storage available on IPad…

sarah2023

Yes that is what I did. It says I have used only 101.3GB of 2TB in iPad storage. I have more than enough room.

Hannah

Thanks for checking that, Sarah, and happy Monday!

Can you also let us know which version of the Dropbox app you have installed?

If you restart the device, does it help?

Or if you uninstall and reinstall the Dropbox app?

sarah2023

Happy Monday! Thank you!

I had already done these things but did them again. Removed and installed app, checked for updates to app (none) and restarted iPad…I can download or it goes through the process but can not find the file on my iPad or iPhone anywhere…

Jay

Could you try marking the file as offline first in the Dropbox mobile app?

Once it's offline, try exporting it to your iPad storage, and it should be visible in the iOS Files app in the On my iPad / Downloads section.

sarah2023

Hi - That process worked for my iPad but not my phone. It seems like a lot of steps just to move a file from the Dropbox app to my device. What happened to just saving to the Camera Roll? Is this something that can be looked into further? Are there other people with this same issue? I really do appreciate all the help and this will have to work for now on my iPad but not sure what to do about the iPhone… thank you.

Jay

If the file is large, marking it as offline means that the export would usually work, since the file already exists in the Dropbox mobile app, instead of having to download it directly.

How much free space does the iPhone have in the storage?

sarah2023

Hi Jay,

My iPhone has 84.6GB of 256GB used...

Megan

Hi @sarah2023, can you try to save another video of the same type? Does it work?

Do you have a rough idea, as to how large the video you're trying to export is? Lastly, let me know if you're using WiFi or cellular data.

Paul James

Hello to anyone having this issue, where a Premiere Pro exported .mp4 video file will not save to your iPhone, and particularly when saving from DropBox. I have root-caused 2 contributing factors: 1. Exporting using 'hardware' and not 'software' under the 'performance' setting can cause the problem. 2. I found a 6k aspect ratio also caused the issue - when I reduced the export aspect ratio to 4k or below, the file saved to the iPhone as expected. I hope this helps someone.

kingsley_tv

Hi,

i recorded my video on my pc using obs and when ive uploaded it to my dropbox on pc i then go to my dropbox ipad pro app and export it onto my ipad pro but it says cant save video to device even though i have enough room, it does say this video may not be saveable on my device is there anything i need to do in order to save it to my ipad pro and keeping the good quality of the video?

i used to use mobizen and never had an issue with that and was able to upload my mobizen videos to dropbox on pc then export them from the dropbox ipad app onto my ipad but obs is a lot better.

please can someone help me?

thank you for taking the time to read my message.

Hannah

Hey @kingsley_tv, welcome to our Community!

Can you first try to make this file available offline and then try to save it to your device and let us know if it helps?