STILL can't get my Dropbox photos to show up in my Android gallery

[yeetandco]

I've read all the related forum posts dating back to 2012 with no avil. 

Problem: I use dropbox mostly for photoshop files and JPG photos. I have many folders and subfolders with pictures and files. Today I started uploading some of these pictures to instagram, so I first selected a folder and 'saved to device'. This did not show these pictures in my Android Gallery app where I need them to be despite saving them to folders with gallery pictures in them. So I selected individual pictures, used the same process and still they are not showing. I found a workaround online by selecting a single picture, clicking 'export to' then selecting instagram. While this did work, it only works for single pictures and I still can't see them in my gallery. 

I am now trying to upload multiple pictures to instagram in a single 'carousel' post, but I am unable to select 'export to' instagram with multiple selected. 

I need to find a way to get my pictures to show up in my Android gallery. I have already looked into the left 'Photos' tab of Dropbox and non of the pictures in my folders show up there, so I am unable to add them to a sub folder named 'Photos' (This was the best solution according to other online users)

Any help avaliable for this?? Thanks

[LukasKetner]

I am having a similar problem on my Galaxy S10+ even with single images. I do 'Save to device', and it doesn't show up in any folder. If I try again, it asks if I want to replace an existing file that is NOT there. I have to restart my phone EVERY TIME to get single pics to show up in my gallery, so multiple images is out of the question. I really don't want to migrate everything from Dropbox to another service, but I'm actively looking for a replacement that isn't Drive.

[Daphne]

Hey @LukasKetner, thanks for joining us here!

In order to have a better look into this with you, I've reached out to the email associated with your profile here.

If you'd like to continue there, please check your inbox for my email when you have the chance and we'll take it from there.

Thanks!

[Chinol]

I've got exactly the same problem described above on my huawei p30 pro.

Saving one photo at a time on my device onto "Camera" folder works fine, but saving multiple photos doesnt.

[Daphne]

Just have a little update for everyone here!

First of all thank you for all your reports here and going through some troubleshooting steps with us. Our dev team is aware of this issue and are looking into it.

We'll make sure to keep you all posted here with any further updates that we receive on this, but in the meantime please don't hesitate to get back to me here with any other info or questions.

Thank you!

[Yek]

To see all the images you download from dropbox do this:
After downloading, run the "folder explorer" of your device. Navigate to the folder that contains the images. Select one image, doesnt matter how many or which one. Copy and paste it into the same folder. If it asks you whether you want to overwrite/replace the existing images just pick "skip". Your device will then somehow update this folder and they will be visible in the images app. (If skip doesnt work try to overwrite)

[quantompop]

Incredible! This actually worked. Thank you.

[TBartley]

People have been posting this error for years and to this day Dropbox staff still don't seem to understand what problem people are having (I've had this issue personally for 2+ years) so I've made a video to show what's happening.

Basically when you individually export files they show up ready to post on Instagram as the most recent photo saved on your device but when you batch export photos they don't. They're probably on the phone somewhere lost within 1000's of other photos but don't show up like an individually exported photo does.

I've posted about this in the forum multiple times and never got a resolution so hopefully this helps.

https://youtu.be/idkzgHTibCU 

[Yek]

To see all the images you download from dropbox do this:
After downloading, run the "folder explorer" of your device. Navigate to the folder that contains the images. Select one image, doesnt matter how many or which one. Copy and paste it into the same folder. If it asks you whether you want to overwrite/replace the existing images just pick "skip". Your device will then somehow update this folder and they will be visible in the images app. (If skip doesnt work try to overwrite)

[Prubie]

I often have the need to share my work on instagram.  I have all my design work photos in folders on dropbox and I like to do a multi-image post on Instagram, which I need to do from the instagram app.  I have seen many forum posts about this but always the response is about how to export a single photo from the dropbox app to your phones storage at which point it is discovered and shows up in Instagram when you click 'new post'.

What i can't work out is why can't i go to a folder full of images, press and hold on one, tick say 10 images and then export and do the same thing.  When I do this it doesn't get picked up by instagram, so is there an issue with the dropbox app in how it is saving the images or is it an instagram issue?  When I inspect the folder directory of my phone on the computer for my Galaxy A20 (so android phone), the 'Download' folder is where all the images are going, and i can see the photos here that i've exported individualy and the ones i exported as a multi selection.  The file types appear to be identical JPG files, so why is instagram only seeing the individually exported ones? is there a thumbnail or database entry that is getting missed that the instagram app is looking for?

I've even tried within the instagram app to change the folder i'm looking at but none of the folders show the exported photos when they are done as a batch, even if I export it to a folder name that both apps can see.  Please help or if this is a limitation of the app can admins please request this to be fixed?

[Lusil]

Hello there @Prubie, thanks for reaching out to us. 

It sounds like you're not able to see photos you exported after multi-selecting them on your Android. 

As such, I moved your post here, where other users have expressed a similar concern. 

As Daphne also mentions above, our dev team is aware of this. We'll make sure to keep you updated with any new info that comes our way regarding this.

In the meantime, you can check out some of the workarounds proposed by other users in the meantime, but let us know if you have any other questions. 

Cheers!