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Forum Discussion
Photos tab previewing comments, and wishes to locate files using geolocation.
OneDrive has a feature where it syncs photos across Galaxy devices - so a photo taken on my phone, can be viewed in the Gallery app on my tablet - as well as on my computer or online.
I currently have Dropbox Plus to backup all my photos, but the photo viewing experience in the Dropbox app is terrible - no searching by location (on a map), slow and painful due to no cached thumbnails, etc.
I really prefer giving my money to an independent company like Dropbox, but double handling my photos is becoming a real pain (if I delete a photo from dropbox, I have to separately delete it from Gallery as well).
Please don't make my swap my data storage needs to Microsoft!
- Megan
Dropbox Staff
Hi jonnybgood, let's jump right into this!
The first point you brought up about files being able to sync and be accessed when using other devices, is essentially how Dropbox works too.
You can use our apps, and everything will sync from one device to the other. Let me know if you have any issues with that on our end.
You also mentioned searching a file by location. I'm guessing you'd like for that to be accessible to all platforms, right?
In addition to this, you mentioned an issue with your thumbnails. Would you mind giving me some additional info about this in order to understand the situation better? What exactly is going on there, and which platform are we talking about?
Keep me posted, and we'll take it from there!
Hi @Megan
Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.
I can access all my files using the Dropbox app - that side of things works fine - photos I take will upload into the Camera Uploads folders. The issue is that the experience looking through photos is not great in the app.
If I set all the photos to be available offline, it then takes up twice as much space because they are already stored on my phone in the Gallery folder (I have hundreds of gigs of photos).
Viewing photos is limited. If I go to an image and then swipe to go to the next one, I can't swipe in full screen mode (I normally hold the phone in landscape mode when looking at photos), I have touch the screen so it shows the info and options panels, then I can swipe - and then to view the next photo in full screen, I have to touch the screen again to make the info and options panels disappear. Feels very clunky (when compared to the Galaxy Gallery app).
There are many other little things - for example if I click on an image to view a bigger version, it takes a second or two (I have a Galaxy S22 Ultra, so fairly speedy) - to compare the Gallery is immediate. I can even go back and then reopen the same photo and it will still take a second - even though it should be pre-loaded???
Regarding location, for example I took some photos on a trip 6 months ago, and for me, searching by location on a map is more intuitive than trying to remember the date and sorting by that.
The thumbnail issue is not a deal breaker - I happened to be looking back at some photos that I hadn't looked at on the app before, and my network connection wasn't great, so the thumbnails wouldn't even load.
Double handling photos is another pain. I tend to sort photos out of my Camera Uploads folder into other folders. Then, because it is not synced with Gallery, I then have to separately delete them from there. It would be great if the Camera Uploads folder was a direct sync of the Gallery folder, so if I delete from one, it disappears from the other.
Please let me know if I can help further.
- Megan
Hey jonnybgood, thanks for the speedy reply too!
I appreciate all the details, and they allow me to have a full idea of everything that's happening on your end, and how we could improve.
Our main priority is to listen to your needs because it allows us to fully appreciate how Dropbox fits into and influences your daily routine.
I'll forward your feedback to the appropriate areas so we can continue to improve, and get better.
In the meantime, you can also upvote this idea. It is pretty similar to what you already voiced about locating files using their geolocation.
I hope this helps!
Megan Great thanks! I've upvoted that other idea too.
I've just been playing around with photos in the Dropbox app a bit more (don't normally use it much because its so annoying). A couple of other more minor things that I noticed:
I was just deleting some pictures using the app, and after deleting each one, it briefly popped up an error about "something not existing and some options not being available". Bit weird. It would also be great to have the option of not needing to confirm the delete - often I'm doing a "big delete session", and having to confirm every time is slow.
To be a really good photo viewing app, the edit options would need to be extended. Currently no ability to write/draw on photos - which I do fairly regularly.
Hi Megan
Just wondering whether there has been any progress with the above feature enhancements? As mentioned in my initial post, I really like supporting independent companies like Dropbox, but currently it doesn't do tasks that I need to do regularly. My subscription is due to renew in early November, and I need to know that there is some hope...
