Moving Pics/Videos from Dropbox "Camera Uploads" to iCloud Photos

[Ronni]

Overs the years I've used Dropbox to backup my pictures and videos. However I recently got a new iPhone, and I want to move all my photos/videos back onto my iPhone. From what I can tell, the best way to do this is using iCloud Photos.

But I now see that Dropbox have converted most of my photos into .jpeg and most videos into .mov. This deviates from iPhones native format which seems to be .heif (for photos) and .hevc (for videos).

Does anybody know how to convert the files back to iPhones native format?

The .jpeg photos are much larger size than .heif, and I lose the "live" portion of the photos. The .mov files (at least the newer ones) simply won't sync to iCloud Photos; I've tried to convert a video into .mp4, which iCloud Photos accept, but quality seems to take a hit.

[Megan]

Hey there, @Ronni, welcome to our Community! 

I think the best way to go on about it, would be for you to use a third-party app in order to convert the files. That way, you'd have the content exported or synced to iCloud photos with the file type of your choice. 

Also, out of curiosity, do you happen to have your old phone still around? If so, then you might still have the ability to re-upload everything from scratch with the .HEIC extension. 

Keep me posted!

[Ronni]

Hey Megan

Thank you 🙂

I have an old iPhone X, with some of the pictures/videos still on. These pics/videos works perfectly with iCloud Photos across all devices. However I didn't sync my new phone with iCloud Photos, before I had it repaired. So I'm relying on my Dropbox backup to restore data.

Since I wrote my first post I've tried to convert files into .heic and .hevc. However iCloud Photos won't accept/sync these files. I've changed my Dropbox settings to backup photos in their original .heic format. Hope this will help for future restores.

I think there's no way arround converting videos into .mp4, and I think the "live" portion of my .jpeg files are lost.

If anybody have any suggestions regarding this issue, I'd love to hear it.

[Ronni · Accepted solution]

Just in case anybody else have the same issue; I was able to avoid converting files all together and upload my photos via iCloud, and my newest .mov videos via the program FoneTool.

I had to change the "Created" date of the files, to the same as "Modified" date, since iPhone uses the first mentioned to catalog videos. I was able to do so with a simple powershell-script:

$files = Get-Item *

foreach ($file in $files) {

try {

$time = Get-Item $file | select -ExpandProperty LastWriteTime
(Get-Item $file).CreationTime=($time)
Write-Output "$file - OK"

}
catch {

Write-Output "$file - $($_.Exception.Message)"

}

}

I'd be happy to hear from anybody with the same problem 🙂

[Max-Sett]

Hey Ronni,

I'm in the same situation as you were. I've been backing up my photos and videos via dropbox since 2014 but would love to transfer them to ICloud.

I'm a bit sad that my live photos have been lost (because all photos were uploaded as JPGs) but ive come to terms with that.

Will I be able to easily transfer all of my photos and videos? I saw you posted something about writing a script on Fonetool but I'm a bit intimidated by that. 

[Ronni]

Hey Max-Sett

I used the "iCloud for Windows" software to access my iCloud Photos on my PC. Then I just dragged and dropped my photos & videos over, and they were automatically synced to my iCloud storage.

For some reason, many of my newer videos wasn't synced to iCloud, using the method above. This is where I had to rely on FoneTool to transfer the videos directly to my new phone, which then synced the videos to iCloud.

You don't really need my powershell script to do any of this. The only reason you would need this is to make sure the files metadata (i.e. date) is correct, before you transfer it to your phone.

Hope this makes sense. Try downloading "iCloud for Windows" first, and check if this solves your problem:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205323

I'll be glad to answer any further questions 🙂