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Does Dropbox delete the original photos from the gallery after uploading them?

I downloaded Dropbox again yesterday after several years, and it asked for permission to access my photos — I allowed it. Immediately, my photos started uploading to Dropbox in real-time. I panicked, stopped the upload, and deleted the app.

But the problem is, even the precious photos that were in my photo gallery are now completely gone.

Does Dropbox delete the original photos from the gallery when uploading them?

I have no way to recover them now, and I’ve lost all the precious photos of my grandmothe

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Mark

joseehosee wrote:
Does Dropbox delete the original photos from the gallery when uploading them?

No it doesnt. Its a very, very common complaint that this doesnt happen.

So as long as you were using the official Dropbox apps when you do Camera Uploads all files stay on the original device.

Robert Dan

Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear about your photos disappearing like that, especially those precious ones of your grandmother! Let’s talk about what might’ve happened with Dropbox and your photo gallery, especially since you mentioned using a photo editor, which could tie into this. Based on what’s out there, Dropbox itself doesn’t delete original photos from your phone’s gallery when it uploads them. When you enable the Camera Uploads feature, Dropbox copies photos from your gallery to its cloud storage, leaving the originals untouched in your phone’s gallery app. It’s designed to back up your photos, not remove them. So, if you allowed Dropbox to access your photos and it started uploading, your original photos should still be in your gallery unless something else went wrong.

Since you mentioned using a photo editor, one possibility is that the editor app you were using might have interacted weirdly with your gallery or Dropbox. Some photo editors can move or delete original files if you save edited versions or change settings, especially if they’re linked to cloud services. For example, if you edited photos, and saved them in a way that replaced the originals or moved them to a different folder, they might seem “gone” from your gallery. Another thought is that when you deleted the Dropbox app in a panic, it might have interrupted something, but even then, Dropbox shouldn’t delete gallery photos on its own. Check your phone’s gallery app or file manager to see if the photos got moved to another folder, like a “Recently Deleted” album, which many phones have for 30 days or so.

It’s also worth looking at your phone’s storage or any other apps you use with your photo editor. Sometimes, gallery apps or cloud services (like Google Photos or iCloud) can hide photos if they’re set to sync or optimize storage. You could try logging into dropbox.com to see if your photos are still there in the Camera Uploads folder, which might give you a clue. If they’re not, check your phone’s trash or recycle bin in the gallery app. I’ve seen posts on forums where people thought photos were gone, but they were just in a deleted folder or mislabeled by an app. Has anyone else run into this with Dropbox or a photo editor messing with their gallery? Any luck recovering those files?

Thank You 🥰