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Apple Photos has caused Dropbox mobile camera uploads to upload duplicate images

for years I've been using Dropbox's "camera uploads" feature to upload my iPhone's photos. I also have a separate location on dropbox with a TON of photos from other cameras/sources in a random folder called "photos". recently I thought I would be make my "photos" folder sync local to my Mac, use Apple Photos to to catalog all of it. unfortunately, this causes dropbox to see ALL the photos, to then populate my iPhone and upload them all back into "camera uploads" -- now I have tens of thousands of duplicates, and every time dropbox launches it continuously uploads a ton of duplicate pictures.

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Jay

Hi @Maxwell F., thanks for bringing this to our attention.

Regarding this situation, how would you like to proceed?

Since the Apple Photos app created these duplicates on the Mac, which then used that system to appear on the iPhone, and finally the Dropbox app then uploaded to your account, what would you like to do?

This will help me to assist further!

Maxwell F.

thanks for the response, I don't know how to fix it, except remove the Mac's "photos" app from seeing any photos, and thus it will stop uploading to the iPhone, and thus back to dropbox's camera uploads, via this loop. I guess all of this brings up the root cause of what many dropbox users have been asking for a long time. a better "photos" app from dropbox than whats on the browser currently, to view, catalog, facial recognition, view photos. carousel was a good start, but abandoned, I've been looking for other catalog methods. giving up is moving all photos off Dropbox to Google photos, as the Mac has terrible cross platform capabilities.

Megan

Hey @Maxwell F.!

In regards to the duplicates, you'd need to remove them manually from the account itself, by deleting them.

Now as for the "Photos" folder that you mentioned earlier, would you like to let me know the steps you followed in order to make it sync locally?

As far as I understood -and correct me if I'm wrong- you had created that folder inside your Dropbox account, and it contained content other than your camera uploads, right?

I'm just trying to understand why you were seeing duplicates inside your camera uploads folder is all.

Maxwell F.

I selected the folder on dropbox to sync the "photos" folder locally, which is the only way I can get Apple Photos or any other desktop photo catalog app to see photos on Dropbox. Once sync'd I pointed Apple Photos to the local sync'd folder, which used iCloud to sync all those photos back to my iPhone, hence back to Dropbox's camera uploads' folder.

I was really on the hunt for a desktop photo catalog app that wouldn't have to sync the folder to the desktop to do a thumbnail catalog.

Walter

Thanks for the additional information and your feedback on this @Maxwell F.

Let us know if you have anything else to add or ask.