You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.

Forum Discussion

Mie I.'s avatar
Mie I.
New member | Level 1
10 years ago

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...?

  • Zed's avatar
    Zed
    8 years ago

    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:

     

    1. Open the Dropbox app.
    2. Open the Settings menu.
    3. Scroll to the Camera Upload section.
    4. 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.]

  • Megan R.2's avatar
    Megan R.2
    New member | Level 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.'s avatar
    Elsie J.
    New member | Level 1

    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's avatar
    Dan R.16
    Helpful | Level 5

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

  • Rich's avatar
    Rich
    Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II

    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.

  • Jamesg's avatar
    Jamesg
    New member | Level 2
    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's avatar
      Alex W.3
      Helpful | Level 5

      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's avatar
        Alex W.3
        Helpful | Level 5

        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.

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