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Jeff T.'s avatar
Jeff T.
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago

Camera Uploads with two mobile devices

I’m experiencing some confusion with how Camera Uploads works. I have Camera Uploads enabled on both my iPhone and iPad. The Camera Uploads folders on both devices have “Make available offline” enabled. If I take a photo on my iPhone, it gets uploaded to Dropbox as expected, and shortly thereafter is synced to my iPad.

 

My problem is that the newly synced photo does not appear in the camera roll in my iPad unless I manually click on “Save to device” for the newly added photo. The same issue occurs in the other direction; i.e., if I add a photo to the camera roll on my iPad. This is a problem if a large number of photos to be added to Camera Uploads, as there appears to be no way to select multiple photos and download them in a single operation. A similar issue occurs if I add a photo to the “Camera Uploads” folder on a computer which is synced to the same Dropbox account as the iPhone and iPad. In that case, the “Download to device” operation must be performed on the iPhone and iPad in order for the new photo to appear in the camera rolls of both devices.

 


Am I missing something, or is this how Camera Uploads is intended to work?


  • Jeff T. wrote:

    Am I missing something, or is this how Camera Uploads is intended to work?


    That's how it's supposed to work. Dropbox does not sync back to your Camera Roll. It can only upload from it to your Dropbox account. The mobile app does not sync the same way that the desktop app does.

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

    Jeff T. wrote:

    Am I missing something, or is this how Camera Uploads is intended to work?


    That's how it's supposed to work. Dropbox does not sync back to your Camera Roll. It can only upload from it to your Dropbox account. The mobile app does not sync the same way that the desktop app does.

    • Jeff T.'s avatar
      Jeff T.
      Explorer | Level 3

      Thanks for the reply. It makes sense that it would behave that way.

       

      Postscript: I figured out a relatively straightforward way to get the desired result using Shortcuts.

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