selective sync on ipad?

I desperately need a proper solution for this.

Current situation:

At the moment since I need a selective synch functionality on my iPad, I using the Documents app by Readdle with my Dropbox. Documents lets you set up a two-way synch folder with any Dropbox folder. It works okay, but is unreliable when you are synching a folder with sub-folders. It also requires a lot of steps. This is now becoming a major frustration since I need to manage thousands of digital photos while I am travelling and not linked to the internet.

My workflow is:

1. Offline: Daily transfer photos from my camera to my iPad, often for a month at a time.

2. Offline, when I have down time: Sort through hundreds of photos on my iPad, comparing them side by side (currently impossible on an iPad), discarding ones I don't need, then organizing the remainder into the hierarchical folder structure I have already setup in on my Dropbox server. (note: I am creating new folders)

3. Offline: when I have down time: Do the same step 2 with my iPhone photos.

4. Online, when I get to an Wifi spot : Selectively synch the various new folders I have created to my Dropbox folder so I have a backup on the cloud.

5. Online, when I get back home: Selectively synch specific folders to various main office desktop computers for different work tasks.

Problems:

1. Apple's iPhoto is unusable because it does not have a hierarchical filing system, and iCloud does not have selective synch.

2. Dropbox is unusable because you cannot organize photos into folders if you are offline, which is when I need to do the organization. It is also poor for comparing photos side by side, and cumbersome for copying photos from one folder to another (need the side by side windows functionality in the OS/X app called PathFinder in order to do this easily).

3. Dropbox plus Readdle is a workaround, but extremely cumbersome and unreliable when you are synching a folder with subfolders.

Question:  

It seems to me that anyone who is doing any serious data management with Dropbox, and using tablet devices must be having the same frustrations. Is Dropbox working on fixing this issue?

Dropbox really needs a selective sync option on iOS. Its a shame that we have to resort to other cloud storage services just to control that feature in our business, when we already pay for Pro.

Wow... appears only the people who need selective sync on iPad or iPhone understand the issue.  Need to have files locally on device when away from WiFi to work effectively on docs.  Airplane anyone?  The app allows for a single file at a time to be stored locally on device.  What's the big deal (dropBox) to allow selection for a folder?  Do the coding and be a solution provider.  I have 128 GB iPhone 6s+ and 256 GB iPad Pro.... locally storing ALL my files on devices is now a reality.  Please catch up to the hardware and help me to increase productivity while simplifying file management.  That is the goal, correct?

And I don't agree with Waqas' comments above.  Even with "access to a file system" it's an easy enough programming task to "virtualize" the folders within the app itself.  How an appliance actually stores the files is irrelevant.

If Dropbox files are not saved on mobile devices, why does my phone says Dropbox is taking up 10GB of space? Thanks

But the rest still makes sense, doesn't it? 

Yes, it does. I'm just trying to stress the point that it is not Selective Sync that you're all asking for. That feature already exists and does not do (nor is it intended to do) what everyone here wants. I'm stressing this point so as to not confuse other people that come here looking for similar features, and going away thinking Selective Sync is what they want.

I just both iPad Pro to use it as my PC with selected Dropbox folders stored on my iPad for offline use, but I realised I would have to select houndreds of files separatelly! not only a folder! CARAZY!!! 

I want to synch WHOLE selected FOLDERS (with subfolders) and keep the synchronised files on iPad for offline use. But I see it is not possible on DropBox. So I need to switch to different app?

Please advise another app which makes it possible both on Windows and iPad.

Jakub

Hi Karen!
Indeed, you can't do a Selective Sync on your iPad... Because your files are not stored locally on your tablet!
The app on your tablet works more like the website https://www.dropbox.com.
It enables you to see your files, but only downloads them if you 'favorite' them (star).
So, as the files re not natively taking space on your iPad, there is no need for selective sync.

I have the same question. Does anyone have a solution?

Laureline,

If I read you correctly above you said my issue was about a "way of better organising favorites and to download / unfavorite them locally in bulk".  This is not what I am asking for. I probably did not explain it clearly enough.

The main point of my request is that I want to add and organise into folders some photos locally on my iPad that have never been on my computer (rather they have just been transferred from my camera to my iPad). Then at a later date synch just those new folders back to my computer at a later date.

This is just how selective synch currently works on every machine. I just want it to work like that on my iPad. You don't need to invent any more features. Just be consistent about the implementation of the features you already have created. 

I don't see the point of having a favourites feature since you can accomplish the same thing by putting the files you want on your iPad into a separate folder and then simply selectively synch that folder. Adding a new feature to accomplish that (favourites) only serves to increase the cognitive overload in using Dropbox.

The great thing and selling point about Dropbox (before you started adding features I might add, was its extremely simple operation and focused functionality (and as a result an extremely low cognitive overload = high degree of usability). Since dropbox's initial concept is so simple, adding that favourites feature was a big percentage increase in cognitive overload, and correspondingly large percentage decrease in usability). If you can use the existing feature (selective synch) to perform some function, it does not make any sense to add a new feature to do a similar task. I am referencing the work of Jakob Nielsen here on User Interface Design: see http://www.nngroup.com/articles/minimize-cognitive-load/. His research into User Interface design is very relevant to your development plans.

Thanks for listening to our input.

Barry

So no solution yet? If we have lots of pdf's, images etc we have to manually synch each one of them on our iPads and then try to find them in a big list of shortened file names with no organization or structure whatsoever?

I really think dropbox should provide a better functionality on this subject.

The way it is does not seem to meet Dropbox standards.