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Forum Discussion
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...?
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.
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
Thank you!!! Signing out and then signing back in worked! Thanks again for helping!!
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
mine is stuck too, tried everything. sometimes 1 or 2 photos get uploaded then it goes back to saying waiting for upload!
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.
I had the same problem. Turned wifi off and on again and everything uploaded fine.
I have the same issue. I'm on Wifi, but it is "waiting to upload".
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
What April K. said worked for me.
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.
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.
- Logged out and back in before contacting Forum. Didn't work then and unfortunately doesn't now. Read on one post that used cell connection and it worked. Not a way that I use my data plan when I am connected to the wifi - which I was before and after signing out. Ironically my not insubstantial subscription just renewed. Extremely unhappy, disappointed and frustrated. Using an iPhone 7S.
- Above message. I logged out and back in
