A few months ago I got my hands on a Samsung Galaxy S4. As part of the setup procedure it asks for your login details for Dropbox, this was great, I actively use Dropbox, had the app on my previous phone and regularly access files from my cellphone. As it was set-up on my previous phone to only download files when I request/access them, I expected the same to happen with this setup.
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The next day I checked my gallery, and saw hundreds and hundreds of photos that Dropbox had decided I wanted to have on my phone. Fortunately I was on Wi-Fi, otherwise that 1.5Gb could have hurt my phone bill at the end of the month. This wasn’t a major problem, as I assumed I’d missed something in my settings which told it to sync photos, so I went in search of the correct settings. And I couldn’t find them anywhere.
I compared the settings exactly to that on my previous Android phone and there was no difference. After searching for a quite a while on the internet, I eventually came across a forum post that explained my problem. The setting I was looking for wasn’t in Dropbox, it was in my phones ‘Accounts’ options, and not under the Dropbox account, but under the general ‘Cloud’ options.
If you look at the bottom you’ll see a ‘Contents sync (with Dropbox) menu, here you can disable the syncing of pictures, videos and documents. Disabling this option then removed all my photos from my gallery and prevented the further unwanted syncing of files from Dropbox to my phone.
So to get there:
Settings > Accounts tab > Cloud > Contents sync
This has bothered me for months, thanks!
I love you man!
thank you?
Cheers bud, I had the opposite problem. I needed my dropbox to always sync with my phone regardless if im on WIFI or mobile data. Many thanks
That should be fairly easy.
If you want documents to always sync for example, go to settings > Accounts > Cloud > Documents, enable sync, and untick the box to only download on wifi.
I have a similar problem. My gallery is synchronizing my pictures, but the problem is that it’s synchronizing ALL pictures from ALL dropbox folders! I only want it to sync from the “pictures” folder. I use dropbox to sync my client projects, web development and design files across platforms, and I DO NOT want those to synchronize to my phone’s gallery. That’s over 10gb of images, and although I have unlimited data, my issue is that there are now over 50 different image folders all trying to load in my gallery at once so now I am unable to view ANY images at all from my camera since it freezes trying to load all of the thumbnails (my guess is low memory, due to samsung’s horrible internal memory system not sharing SD card storage) Anyone have any ideas? Is it possible to prevent those files from synchronizing?
Only solution I can think of is to ‘Favourite’ your pictures folder in the dropbox app, that way all of those files are locally cached.
I have the opposite problem. I have a file of pictures that I took on my phone, that will not go to dropbox. When I follow your directions and press accounts, I do not have a cloud option.
Please help!
Thanks-
Kelle
When you open your settings menu, you should have 4 tabs at the top of the screen, the third one should be ‘Accounts’. if it’s not there, then either you don’t have an S4, or your running some other firmware and I can’t help you.
Let me know how it goes.
Hi,…i have a huge problem…. So i synched the dropbox pictures to my gallery pictures by accident :/…. But when i found out i tried your method..though the pictures got deleted the dropbox folders are still there if that makes sense and i have tried everything to delete them, i have formatted my phone deleted the dropbox account everything. But nothing seems to be working… please help me
I don’t fully understand. What do you mean when you say the dropbox folders are still there?
Still on your phone? Just the folders? Are the photos also still there?
hi,
The pics from the gallery are backed up in drop box but when i reset my phone and want all the pics back from Dropbox sync up directly to gallery it does not do..
Even in the Account->dropbox-> sync now is disabled. how can i have it directly on my phone if i reset my phone or have the sync now option enabled.
Hi Abhilasha
As I mentioned in the article, you must go to “Account > Cloud > Pictures” and enable sync over there. If you connect to a WiFi network these pictures should automatically start to download.
Hope this helps
I don’t have a Cloud menu under Settings / Accounts. And my Dropbox account doesn’t have any sync options. Now what?
Lou
Are you sure you have a Samsung Galaxy S4 running Android Jelly Bean (4.3)?
Under settings, you select “Accounts” at the top of the screen, then scroll all the way down to the bottom.
Yes, that is exactly what I have and no where on the Accounts drop down menu is there a Cloud option. All my accounts are listed, then Add Account, then Backup Options.
Does Dropbox show up in your list of accounts?
If so, when you click on it does it show your account there? Have you logged into the account?
Yes, Dropbox is there, and yes I am signed in. The only thing a bit odd is that at the bottom of Dropbox menu there are two options: Remove account is available, Sync now is not. Perhaps that is OK, my Skydrive account is the same.
Sorry, without actually having the phone in my hands I don’t know if I’ll be able to figure out anything further. Mine also has those two options, with “Sync now” greyed out.
Have you created/logged in to a Samsung account?
Yes, and I am suspicious of that, but I can’t delete it. I also wonder if Verizon has intercepted some of the intended functionality by installing Backup Assistant Pro, which I don’t want, but can’t uninstall or delete.
It’s possible, sorry I haven’t been able to help.
I have just upgraded from Samsung S3 to S4 – I have a lot of documents that I could read when not connected to wifi on my Samsung S3 but now having the Samsung S4 I am unable to read the documents unless I am connected to wifi. Have I done something wrong – confused dot com :0) look forward to heari a solution
Regards
Kevan
Hi Kevan
Dropbox keeps a cache of all recently accessed files. You might find that documents you accessed on a regular bassis or uplaoded from the phone are no longer cached and thus the first time you access them it requires wifi access to download them. Alternatively, you may have synced all your documents from Dropbox to your phone. This it does by default when on wifi if activated, and then all your documents will be on your phone and will stay up to date when you connect to wifi, you can also set it up to sync when on normal 3G or other mobile data. This can be done in the Cloud option on your S4.
A last option is that Dropbox keeps a local copy of any files you mark as favourites, so once downloaded will always remain on your phone.
hope this helps