selective sync on ipad?

[karen h.3]

Is this possible? I know how to selectively sync on my computer, but I can't figure out how to do so on my ipad. HELP!

[Rich]

But the rest still makes sense, doesn't it? 

Yes, it does. I'm just trying to stress the point that it is not Selective Sync that you're all asking for. That feature already exists and does not do (nor is it intended to do) what everyone here wants. I'm stressing this point so as to not confuse other people that come here looking for similar features, and going away thinking Selective Sync is what they want.

[Mikhail S.3]

"That feature already exists and does not do (nor is it intended to do)..."

The reason everyone keeps asking for "Selective Sync" is because they want their mobile Dropbox to act in similar fashion to their PCs, i.e. hide, or "sync" certain folders. 

Dropbox designed the mobile version to look similar to the desktop app, and that's a very good thing, that's one reason why we love it. But, because certain features are available on PC, people now expect to find them on mobile because of the familiarity, and because they're so useful. 

At the root, Selective Sync is not what mobile users need, but most of us don't understand how exactly Dropbox works at the root. So we ask for features in the best way we can describe them. If I go to Home Depot and ask for nails to put up my drywall, the employees don't send me away because that's not what nails are used for. 

So maybe the feature we're asking for is infinitely more complicated than finding a box of drywall screws, and that's something only Dropbox can answer. We do appreciate your responses to the community, not many companies do that still. But we're not all educated in proper technical terminology.

It seems that what we're are asking for is, a feature that let's us select what folders get displayed on Dropbox mobile. You can call it Selective View instead. 

[Hugo E.1]

THAT!!!!! 

[Barry R.3]

"It seems that what we're are asking for is, a feature that let's us select what folders get displayed on Dropbox mobile. You can call it Selective View instead. "

....no this is not what I am looking for, because it implies if you add a file on your tablet, say a photo, it is not going to be uploaded to the cloud. 

To be precise, what I am looking for is exactly the same functionality that you get when you are on a mac and do this:

1. click the Dropbox icon in the menu bar

2. click the gear icon

3. Click Account

4. Click Selective Synch

5. Click Change Settings to display a list of all the folders on the dropbox cloud with check boxes for you to select or deselect. On an iPad, they should of course be DESELECTED by default, for obvious reasons of space.

[Barry R.3]

To make clear why the offline feature is useless, just consider this use case scenario:

• I have 10,000 photos on my dropbox cloud, sorted into about 800 subfolders in a geographical hierarchy four levels deep
• Of these, I want about 1000 photos stored locally on my iPad to work on offline, split across 100 folders at different levels of my main hierarchy

So when using  the offline feature in the dropbox iOS app, In order to access say just ten photos in one of the subfolders, every time I wanted to access them , I would have to search through a thousand files looking for just those ten file names  I wanted. That is impossible because I only know how to navigate my folder hierarchy to find the photos I want (in my case: world photos: USA: California: San Francisco), but could not possibly remember 10,000 photo filenames when they are all called something like P10004568.

[Waqas T.]

Blame Apple for not having a file system in IOS, don't blame Dropbox for not having "Selective Sync". If Apple would have had a file system app makers would have made sync apps for Dropbox on IOS.

There are currently tons of apps like Dropsync, Foldersyns etc for Android that let you sync your Dropbox folder to your Android device. Not only sync, but have useful options like "Download Mirror/Upload Mirror", "Sync", "Download/Upload only" etc. Why? Because Android has a file system apps can access, IOS does not.

[Barry R.3]

Documents by Readdle on iOS lets you synchronize a Dropbox folder (two ways), therefore I would this not imply that it is possible on iOS? and therefore that Dropbox could also do if they wanted to?

[Joseph C.20]

Whatever the correct term for it is, the underlying issue is there needs to be a way to mark entire folders (with subfolders) as available offline in iOS, not just individual files. With hundreds of work files that I need available offline on my iPad, it takes me FOREVER to mark them all. And I have to do this every two weeks because the files I need change. Since all those files happen to reside within a handful of folders in my dropbox, this could all be done in .01% of the time with half a dozen clicks if entire folders could be marked as offline/automatically downloaded/synced/whatever you want to call it. Please do everything you can to add this function.

[Mark P.46]

Wow... appears only the people who need selective sync on iPad or iPhone understand the issue.  Need to have files locally on device when away from WiFi to work effectively on docs.  Airplane anyone?  The app allows for a single file at a time to be stored locally on device.  What's the big deal (dropBox) to allow selection for a folder?  Do the coding and be a solution provider.  I have 128 GB iPhone 6s+ and 256 GB iPad Pro.... locally storing ALL my files on devices is now a reality.  Please catch up to the hardware and help me to increase productivity while simplifying file management.  That is the goal, correct?

And I don't agree with Waqas' comments above.  Even with "access to a file system" it's an easy enough programming task to "virtualize" the folders within the app itself.  How an appliance actually stores the files is irrelevant.

[Chris R.44]

On my iPad half of my available storage is taken up by my photos. My photos are sync'd to Dropbox. How do I safely remove them from my iPad without deleting them from Dropbox?