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Forum Discussion
How to stop Dropbox from automatically uploading my new PC's Photos?
I just purchased a new Windows 11 computer. I used an external hard drive to transfer 900GB of files from my old computer to the new one and then disconnected that hard drive. Now Dropbox appears to be going through on my photos on the hard drive of the new computer and uploading them to my "Camera Uploads" folder. I get this message "Importing Photos about 39 hours left" from Dropbox for that process. I do NOT want the photos on my new PC's hard drive in Dropbox. How do I stop this automatic upload? I've changed the autoplay options in Windows 11 and that didn't help.
Am I doing something wrong?
Megan just gave you a direct link - you just needed to scroll down the page a bit more :)
- Mark
Super User II
You need to turn off Camera Uploads to stop this - you must have accidentally clicked yes one time.
Hi Mark and thanks for the reply. When I go to the link in your message, it says "Camera uploads is a feature that automatically uploads photos from your mobile device to Dropbox". My problem is not a "mobile device" but my Windows 11 desktop computer. When I login with my credentials to Dropbox.com, I see no "Admin Console" option, even when I search for that phrase. I did go to "Settings" but can't find any option to turn off uploads for my Windows PC Hard Drive. Am I doing something wrong?
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hey there, Bill Schrier, thanks for posting here!
Would you mind trying the steps shown at this Help Center article instead?
I'll be waiting for your updates!
- Mark
Am I doing something wrong?
Megan just gave you a direct link - you just needed to scroll down the page a bit more :)
Hi Megan and Mark: I had already done that hours ago - found the "Autoplay" and changed both the "Removable Drive" and "Memory Card" options to "Use File Explorer to view the files". I went back just now and and double checked. The move from my hard drive to Camera Uploads is still occurring.
Again, what is happening here is Dropbox is going through my new PC's HARD DRIVE (a 2TB SSD), finding photos and backing them up to "Camera uploads". On my hard drive I have the photos separated into folders by years, e.g. "2016", "2017", etc. I know this sync is occurring because I only keep the latest year to 18 months of photos in my Camera Uploads, but now that folder has photos from 2016. And I keep getting that message "importing photos, about 25 hours left" although the time is coming down. And when I go to "Task Manager", I see Dropbox consistently using 25Mb/second of network.
Ok Mark and Megan, I figured out what is going on, although it is still strange. I have an SD card in my printer with 2016 files on it. I removed the SD card and the syncing stopped. So Dropbox was NOT going after my hard drive. Still, when I changed Autoplay "Memory Card" option from "Import Photos and Videos (Dropbox)" to "Open folder to view files", hours ago, that should have stopped the sync, right? Anyway, you can mark this issue resolved. I will use a new, empty, SD Card in the printer - I just use it to save scanned files.
Thanks.
- Megan
Awesome news Bill Schrier!
Thanks for letting me know. If you need something else, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help every step of the way. 😊
