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Camera Uploads backup HEIC to JPG conversion

JacobLee

I want to start backing up my iPhone photos to the Camera Uploads feature. I have 2 questions:

In the upload settings you can choose HEIC or JPG setting for the files. As iPhone photos are all default HEIC the settings ask if I want to convert them to JPGs (to improve general software compatibility I guess). How much compression happens to the original image if I choose for Dropbox to convert the files to JPG?
As I have my iPhone photos synced to iCloud I believe some of them are just smaller thumbnails until I open them and then they download from iCloud (top save space). Will Dropbox backup the high res photos from iCloud or the smaller versions on my iPhone?

Thanks,

Jake

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Comments

Cynthiaa

Hello Jacob,

The HEIC is not a true default, it is a setting in the Camera in Settings. You can choose to shoot all your photos in JPG if you wish. As for the compression question, the general rule is that the RAW photo (which is what the HEIC is) is usually about 4x the size of the JPG. Jpeg's are heavily compressed. I would be quite wary of depending on the Photos iCloud for photo quality. I am an Apple lover, personally, but Photos in the iCloud is a true pain point in the Apple ecosystem. For reasons too numerous to mention. For the best quality preservation, send the HEIC's directly to Dropbox. I always tell people to use Dropbox instead of iCloud if their photos matter, because Dropbox "never touches your stuff" in terms of compression, or metadata alteration. You can't say that about either the iCloud or Google Photos.

JacobLee

Thanks for your info on this. From experience I realise JPG's can have different levels of compression so I was wondering how heavily compressed the original HEIC files are by Dropbox's converter. It doesn't let you adjust it in the settings

Cynthiaa

Good question. What about transferring them yourself, is that too much work? I have rarely used their camera upload, so I was assuming that you were creating a folder yourself and storing the photos there. In that case, of course, there is no compression. I think a Dropbox tech has to weigh in on this. But, again, if the photos are important, I would store them in a file structure you create yourself.