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Forum Discussion
Picture Uploads from iPhone to Dropbox (file size varies)
I just took a picture on my iPhone X. I have Camera Uploads enabled so it uploads to my Dropbox and is titled "2020-02-12 13.07.52.jpg". The file size shows as 8,905KB on my Win 10 PC. Back to the ph...
Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Dropbox Community ModeratorIs the image saved as a heic file on your iPhone?
Have you enabled conversion of the heic file to JPG format on the Dropbox mobile app in the camer auploads section?
Did you choose the automatic or 'keep originals' option when importing to your PC from the iOS settings page?
This page has more info on the HEIC format and the various settings I mentioned above.
They appear to be saved as JPG on the phone. That's the extension showing when looking at them on the computer when the phone is connected via USB (DCIM, etc).
Yes regarding enabling the conversion to JPG on the Dropbox Mobile App (Save HEIC Photos As - (JPG is recommended and checked)
"Automatic" is selected in the IOS settings (Photos/Transfer to Mac or PC)
With those settings I'm still perplexed as to why the method I choose to move the pictures to my PC yield files of varying sizes. Am I missing something?
Thanks for working on this.
- Jay
One last thing to check, let me know what image option is saved originally here?
- Go to the iOS Settings app
- Tap Camera
- Tap Formats
Keep me posted!
High Efficiency is currently checked.
Thx.
- Jay
Thanks for the info. This means you’re storing photos on your phone in the high efficiency HEIC format.
Just so you know, while the way an iPhone saves and exports its pictures isn’t obvious in terms of its internal process, I can imagine it goes like the following:
- The picture is taken via the camera app.
- The iOS device keeps the original quality on the phone in HEIC format, which uses the least amount of disk space.
- Dropbox makes the conversion to JPG when using the ‘Save HEIC photos as’ when using the automatic camera upload.
- iOS will convert the image itself to JPG when using the ‘Transfer to Mac or PC’ option.
- Emailing the image directly from the phone, or uploading it manually, should also convert the image somehow through iOS, though this isn’t listed in their options.
Essentially, in all three cases, the HEIC file is compressed to a JPG image, which makes the filesize larger than a normal HEIC file. I can’t vouch for the quality of the compression differences between when the Dropbox mobile app does it, and the iOS ‘Transfer to Mac or PC’ option, hence the filesize differences as two different apps are making the changes.
As to how the image is added to Dropbox manually, or when emailed to you, and the image is the smallest size, I don’t think it’s HEIC, since it ends in a .JPG image. I honestly don’t know how it's done, so it might be worth checking with Apple, since this is directly through their own system.
While I don’t have all the answers for you (the adding of the image directly to Dropbox and emailing it to you is unknown to me), hopefully this should shed some light on the matter.
