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Forum Discussion
How to speed up Dropbox uploads on iPhone
Dropbox sync only happens when I have the Dropbox iPhone app actively open, and even then it takes about 5 minutes to upload a single photo. This is for camera roll sync.
Hi there, I’m Antonio, a member of the Dropbox Mobile team. I wanted to talk about our upload process on iOS and address its current constraints:
If you are manually uploading files into your Dropbox using the plus (“+”) button, keep in mind that uploads will only run while the app is in the foreground. When the app is backgrounded, Dropbox can only run for a few minutes before the device will stop the process to save battery. To remedy this, we recommend keeping the app open while an upload is in progress.
If you are using the camera uploads feature to automatically upload photos from your Camera Roll to Dropbox, you can turn on “Background Uploading”. This will allow your photos and videos to continue uploading even if you don’t have the app open. Additionally, this feature uses location changes to trigger uploads as you move around throughout the day (this is why we ask you to enable “Location Services” when you enable this feature). Keep in mind that if there isn’t a significant location change after a few minutes, the device will stop the process, and photos or videos will no longer upload in the background.
Syncing can be slower if you have “iCloud Photo Library” enabled on your device, and have enabled “Optimize iPhone Storage” in your iCloud Photo settings. This feature stores high resolution versions of your files to the cloud, and keeps optimized versions of the files on your device. When Dropbox attempts to automatically upload these files, we have to first connect to iCloud’s servers to download the high resolution photo, and then sync that photo to your Dropbox. This can be a slow process that is dependent upon the strength of the server connection to iCloud. Additionally, this process is limited to WiFi-only (even if you have the camera uploads feature enabled over cellular data).
With these constraints in mind, here are some recommendations when uploading your files:
- If you have a desktop with the Dropbox desktop app installed, you can use the desktop camera uploads feature. This automatically transfers any new photos or videos to your Dropbox when you plug your device to your computer (read more about this feature here).
- If you don’t have a desktop, ensure that your Dropbox mobile app has “Background Uploading” enabled for your camera uploads. You can do this by going to the Recents tab, selecting the gear icon, selecting Camera Uploads and toggling the “Background Uploading” switch on.
- When uploading files using the plus (“+”) button, keep the Dropbox app open while the upload is in progress.
We’re always working on improving the background upload experience and greatly appreciate your feedback. We'll keep monitoring this thread and will do our best to reply to any other questions not addressed by this explanation.
Fix this! Drip drip drip- upload is unbearably slow! Erlich
Sooo true! I mean come on! First I couldn't believe Carousel was going to vanish and the I have to realise that the drop box app is bullshizzle for photouploads? I am no longer giving money to a company while other do a better job for free....
this is to slow, i have had pro for years now, if you can fix i will move on to something else
Where is DrioBox Solution to this?????? Itsinfuriating and unbearable as carousel worked so perfect!! I would pay for carousel to return!!!
Seriously, I'm having the same problem as all these people and have been a Dropbox pro customer for nearly 2 years now. I have over 500 photos in the queue for upload and every time I visit my iPhone app the queue is like 1 photo less and counting. Background uploading ? HA! There is NO difference with that engaged whatsoever. I'm on the verge of migrating to Google driver or another competitor for the same or cheaper rate for cloud storage. Not to mention the slow download ' stream of my data when I want to show my family photos on my mobile devices.
Dropbox FIX THIS or you're losing another customer.
When carousel was introduced, there was much criticism about why a separate app was needed, but to be fair it worked really well. It was quick and didn't suffer from the "Dropbox has paused upload" messages.
Now that it has been retired, you would have thought that this good code would have been integrated back into Dropbox, but sadly it clearly hasn't and if anything things have got worse. It's painfully slow and isn't using the available bandwidth, and we're back to having to keep re-opening Dropbox to keep things going, even though background upload is on and so is location services.
How can it be that the feature (instant, fast upload) that was working perfectly before is now broken?
Same problem. Carousel work fabulously, the iOS Camera Upload feature takes an age. Background barely works, it might work for about 2 minutes after switching to another app. At this point, I wait until it is time to go to bed, turn off automated screen locking, plug in the charger and then open the app. Maybe 8 hours later my 1 minute 25 second video will be uploaded when I wake up in the morning.
Ridiculous, especially since you had this all worked out with Carousel.
This is ridiculous. Took me 4 hours to upload 20 photos and not it's stuck on 9 photos remaining for several days now. WTF dropbox?
Echo all of the above, what's the point of an auto back up cloud service that doesn't back up?
