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Uploading photos from phone

I basically got Dropbox in order to move my enormous collection of pictures and videos from my iPhone to somewhere else...The transfer went fine for a while, but then it has stopped and I keep seeing a message saying "waiting to upload". I have quit the application and relaunched, which does nothing. I have even upgraded Dropbox, as I suspect I will need the extra space...

There is still over 400 pictures which are "waiting to upload" plus a few videos. And did I mention I started this process 13th of December...?

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Accepted answers

Zed

Hi there,

If you are using the Camera Uploads feature , please first check that these requirements are met:

You have a strong WiFi connection
Your device has sufficient battery life available (camera uploads will pause when battery life is low)
If you have a free Dropbox account, you have connected your computer to your personal Dropbox account, you have upgraded your personal account to Dropbox Pro

For iOS users:

Background uploading

Background uploading allows camera uploads to finish adding photos to your Dropbox, even if you didn't open the Dropbox app. To enable:

Open the Dropbox app.
Open the Settings menu.
Scroll to the Camera Upload section.
Toggle Background Uploading to On.

Notes on background uploading: Normally, camera uploads only runs while the Dropbox app is open and for a few minutes after you close it. This is due to a limitation in iOS. However, if you turn on background uploading, the app will automatically resume uploads whenever it detects a significant change in your iPhone's location.

For Android users:

Once camera uploads is enabled, the following things happen:

- Dropbox automatically adds eligible photos and videos to the Camera Uploads folder in your Dropbox

- When you launch Dropbox from your phone or tablet, the Dropbox app adds any photos or videos taken since the last time the app was open, or the last time the app was connected to your computer

Note: Camera uploads will only upload photos that are located in the Camera or Screenshots folders of your device's photo or gallery app. If your photos are not in this app then they will not be uploaded to Dropbox.

When you choose Wi-Fi only for Camera Uploads, background uploading will not use your cellular data and will resume when your device connects to a Wi-Fi network again.

Once you have checked all of the above and still are experiencing issues with your uploads, as a first step try signing out and then back in to the app. If that doesn't solve the issue, please remove and reinstall the Dropbox app on your mobile device:

https://www.dropbox.com/mobile

If you keep having issues even after reinstalling the app, so that our support team can investigate and assist you on this, please go to www.dropbox.com/support and submit a ticket request.

Once you do, please let us know with the ticket number ID you will receive in your mail and we'll be happy to help!

Thank you.

[This thread is now closed by moderators due to inactivity. If you're experiencing a similar behavior, feel free to start a new discussion in the Ask a Question section here.]

All comments

Mark

Tried uninstalling and reinstalling the app?

Mie I.

It says if I delete the app all the content will disappear...But that's just a standard message right?

Mark

Local content disappears (e.g. if you've marked things as a favourite)

Mie I.

Ah, okay. Well, it seems something is in fact still moving, though it's taken weeks to download a very long video...It seems to only be downloading when I keep the app open. Which means I have to watch it as a hawk all the time and keep opening it. Is that really how it should be...?

Mark

Its restrictions Apple have in place Mie.

You may want to install Dropbox on a computer and then connect the iPhone there where it maybe quicker

Stacy F.1

Why do all of my photos say "waiting to upload" after 3 weeks of having the app installed on my iPhone? I also just downloaded Dropbox on my computer so I'd have access there also hoping that was why they weren't uploading, but none of them are transferring there either?!?

Mark

Usually that means you've not connected to a WiFi network.

Stacy F.1

Yes, I'm usually connected to wi-fi 99% of the time.

Dan R.16

mine is stuck too, tried everything. sometimes 1 or 2 photos get uploaded then it goes back to saying waiting for upload!

Hugh C.

I have the same problem on my Android over the last week or so. After trying everything on the net, I accepted the Dropbox offer to "Contact Us" and I duly filled out their form and submitted it. What I got in reply was an automated message telling me to go to the pages I had already visited, without success. This is pretty poor customer service from Dropbox.

Evan M.3

I had the same problem. Turned wifi off and on again and everything uploaded fine.

Hugh C.

Just tried that again. Doesn't work.

Balazs H.

I have the same issue. I'm on Wifi, but it is "waiting to upload".

Dan R.16

I can't even believe this is still a problem. Why should we be forced to use cellular data connections to upload our photos? Much longer and I will have to look for another service - this is ridiculous

April K.2

I was dealing with this for a few weeks now, and I just simply 'Signed Out' of Dropbox on my phone and logged back in. Things started to load without a problem. who knows? but thought I'd share

Linda M.54

What April K. said worked for me.

Penny W.

April K Thank you, simple but effective, signed out and back in and it is uploading on my iphone again!

Jessica H.16

Enabling auto upload on my phone worked for my monumental transfer of honeymoon photos. I deleted the album I started to make space for the incoming waves of duplicates ;( Also, just received a phone notification that the upload had stopped when my phone auto-locked. I set my phone to "never" auto-lock and photos are coming in steadily now.

harold s.

April K Thank you, signed out and back in and it is uploading on my iphone again!

The layout on the dropbox app changed when I signed out and signed back in, maybe it was stuck in an old version of dropbox.

Dustin A.3

Worked for me, thanks!

Megan R.2

Yes!!!! Signing out and back in works!!! Also be sure in settings you have it "on" to auto download photos AND videos. Also if you don't have the setting on the use cellular data, then it will only work when you have wifi

Elsie J.

My daughter has a Motorola moto 4g phone - She has many photos and videos sent to her via WhatsApp on phone but these will not upload to the computer. Photos that she has taken herself on her phone have no trouble uploading. Has anyone any suggestions as to what may be the problem. She has moved the photos and videos to dropbox,and dropbox on phone shows that they are there, but the computer does not recognise that these photos are there.

Dan R.16

Nothing works for me, just did a factory reset on my phone and still same old lol

Rich

She has moved the photos and videos to dropbox,and dropbox on phone shows that they are there, but the computer does not recognise that these photos are there.

Are the photos visible when she logs in to the Dropbox website? If not, then they are not being uploaded by the phone. If they are, then the computer is not syncing them for some reason. You need to determine where the problem resides (phone or computer) so you know where to troubleshoot.

Nothing works for me, just did a factory reset on my phone and still same old lol

Exactly what do you mean by "nothing works"? That's like saying "my car doesn't work" and expecting a reason why in response. You need to tell us what isn't working, what steps to reproduce it, what error messages you're getting, etc. Details please.

Dan R.16

Nothing works, as in - none of the fixes work for me. See this thread https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/205046953-camera-upload-failing

Jamesg

Same on my phone, and it turned out that it was getting stuck on a corrupted picture. It would half upload a particular photo then stop. I went and found the offending picture in my gallery app, and it crashed the app too. Deleted the pic and all is well... Hope that helps.

Alex W.3

I'm running Android N (7.0) on a Nexus 5X, and I also frequently run into this "Waiting to Upload" problem in the Camera Upload interface. I've turned on and off WiFi, logged in and out of Dropbox, and usually after 20-30 minutes of fiddling around with various things, I'm able to coax the Dropbox android app into uploading photos.

This is the first time I haven't been able to randomly solve things by restarting the app / phone / connection a bunch.

SUGGESTION: It would be nice if the reason for the "Waiting for upload..." message were exposed to the end user. For example: "Waiting for WiFi connection" or "Waiting until battery is charged" or "Waiting (stuck on photo #820 for 87 minutes now)" instead of the all-purpose uninformative message we currently get.

Alex W.3

I was able to solve my camera upload issue on Android by completely deleting the Dropbox app and reinstalling it.

(Just logging out and back into my account earlier did not do anything.)

Photos are now uploading again.

kmasonnaughton

Thank you!!! Signing out and then signing back in worked! Thanks again for helping!!

UK-H

Message said that I would lose my data so did not