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Forum Discussion
Background activity iOS from the mobile app.
Hi,
Just notice that Dropbox keeps active in the background on iOS, even if i disable it in the settings from iOS. After some testing I found the problem, the integration with the files app causes this problem. If I disable Dropbox within the files app there is no longer background activity from Dropbox. Hope this can be fixed soon because it drains my battery.
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- Ahhh I’m glad I’m not alone on this one..
I now panic when I realise that I’d forgotten to quit the app before putting the iPad away, since then I dread to see what reaction that follows..
It’s really chronic on the power use since when this has happened my iPad feels like a toast straight out of the toaster!!!! - Daphne
Dropbox Community Moderator
Thanks for your updates here!
Just to confirm, when you mentioned turning off all background updates etc, are you referring to "background app refresh"?
If you're not familiar with this, you can check it out by opening the device's Settings > General > Background app refresh.
Also, can you confirm for me the version of the Dropbox app installed, and the iOS version of your device?
Cheers!
This just started happening for me concurrent with update to iOS 14 on iPhone XR. Nothing had changed about my use of the phone, or privacy/diagnostics/background refresh, etc. Dropbox background 'activity' became constant, although battery 'usage' showed only dashes Dropbox, battery drain was immediately noticeable with iOS 14 upgrade. Background Refresh was off globally, but this Dropbox activity and the battery draining didn't stop until I turned off Background Refresh individually for the app. (I hadn't tried just disabling in Files.) Prior to this, Dropbox showed activity for entire time Screen Off time overnight (59 minutes of every hour, matching 59 minutes Screen Off, no wifi on).
- Daphne
Hey k8bushlover!
When you have the time, please check out my post here for some more info on this. Cheers!
Thanks, I should have given it a bit more time--back to how it was a couple hours later. Will disable Files integration and see if that helps, and await further word.
I recently connected DropBox with Finder on iOS, and to my surprise my iPad was dead this morning. This has not happened as long as I can remember. Big is my surprise that DropBox STILL HAVE NOT FIXED THIS!
5 months or so later, and this is still going on with no fix provided. No other cloud-based services like Google Drive and MS OneDrive seem to be doing anything similar. I'm gonna have to move the files somewhere else and get rid of this.
I can even sort of see what Dropbox's been trying to do here; their real-time sync in the desktop client is very convenient. On mobile devices, though, the same behaviour is simply not desired for the sake of the battery life.
- Same here. I only use a very small percentage of allowed space and I already pay for iCloud storage so I really should stop using Dropbox.
I wanna be fair here: I'm not going to make any sweeping statements about leaving the service entirely (as I said, it's still very comfortable and convenient on desktop OSs). Plus, Apple is also partially to blame here — giving the users the option to disable the background app refresh in iOS, then letting the developers bypass this preference entirely…
So, I'll keep using Dropbox for desktop, but I'm going to have to move away files that I want to be accessible from my iPhone until this issue is properly addressed. The mobile app has forced me to merely change my use case, but it's still a pity that I've had to do that.
Good luck to the developers. This task may not be as easy as we BFUs might think.
