dropbox lost track of my iphone camera roll backup

[ostraz]

For years, I've used Dropbox to backup my iPhone camera roll.

It remembers which photos have been backed up, so it only backs up the new photos.

Recently I bought a new iPhone and installed Dropbox on it. 

I connected to my backup, but Dropbox has lost track of where it was.

It's now back to the beginning, attempting to back up thousands of photos going back years.

How do I get it to reset back to only attempt to back up recent photos, e.g. this month?

[Walter]

Hey @ostraz, sorry to hear about this.

Is it possible that instead of logging into your old account on the new iPhone, you logged into (or created) a new account?

When you say you connected to your backup, could you clarify how exactly? 

Any additional information is more than welcome!

[ostraz]

Thanks for the quick reply, Walter.

I don't think I created a new account. When I logged into Dropbox from the iPhone app,

I saw my folder "Camera Uploads". Years ago, I enabled sharing it with another user (my spouse)

so they could access my uploaded photos, and I confirmed that the folder was shared correctly.

My backup process works like this:

   * I take new photos on my iPhone, they are added to my phone's Camera roll.

   * I run the Dropbox app on my iPhone. It copies these new photos (but none of the old ones) to Camera Uploads.

   * My spouse opens the shared Camera Uploads folder on their machine.

   * We move all the new photos to another location (a large capacity USB drive, our non-Dropbox backup).
      This removes them from the shared Camera Uploads.

   * This empties out Camera Uploads, which remains empty until I take some more photos and repeat the above.

This has been working for me very well for years. It works because Dropbox

usually remembers which photos on my roll have been backed up, and only copies the new ones.

This time, Dropbox has forgotten the history. It says "backing up" thousands of photos, going back several years.

Is there any way to restore Dropbox's memory? Or to start with the current month?

[Walter]

Thanks for all the additional information @ostraz - most appreciated!
 

Could you try disabling the camera uploads feature completely and then re-enabling it anew?

From there, you should be given the option to choose only new photos going forward. 

If you find that any of your recent ones won't upload, you can manually upload them via the (+) button within the mobile app.

I hope this helps!