Can I delete photos from my phone after uploading them without deleting them from Dropbox too?

[Jonathan B.3]

Here's the essence of the problem: I have DropBox Pro installed on an iPhone 5s, iPad Air, MacBook Pro and Windows desktop computer. I do NOT want to clog up my iPhone, iPad and MacBook with files from DropBox. I want to simply upload and then delete them from the mobile devices. I'd like to use automatic Camera Upload but when I delete the photos from my iPhone or iPad I do NOT want them deleted from DropBox...as has happened on numerous occasions (most recently when I exchanged a broken iPhone for a new one and then tried to copy content from one to the other and subsequently delete unwanted photos...on the iPhone, not "unwanted" from my DropBox space). So how do I do a one way sync? Keep in mind that after photos appear in the Camera Upload folder, I MOVE them to a different desired location...and when they're deleted from my iPhone, they are still deleted from the new location!

[mccoyLBI]

Why can't you guys just add a feature to delete all photos that were just uploaded? It's really not that hard...

[Peter S.32]

Interpunction would be helpful

[LizLiew]

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The Carousel app (discontinued) had a nice feature that would purge any photos from the gallery that had already been uploaded to Dropbox. It's likely that will be incorporated into the Dropbox client at some point.

PLEASE! this would be such a sensible idea

[Demetre K.]

Why can't you guys just add a feature to delete all photos that were just uploaded? It's really not that hard...

[Peter S.32]

I fear it might be hard, because the photos are owned by the camera app. In my understanding, the camera app can hand over photos to dropbox, but dropbox cannot access them directly. The camera app has to delete the photos after sharing with dropbox.

[imightbewrong]

I would really like this feature - for the phone to auto-clear-down.  There is an app which does this:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=sweesoft.sweethome&hl=en_GB

It copies your photos onto a network location, then will clear them off your phone after a configurable amount of time.  This could even be used with dropbox, if you set up a location on your home network to auto-upload to dropbox.

But it would be a lot better if it was handled natively by the dropbox app.

[Peter S.32]

Sorry, I'm not sure that this should be really handled by the Dropbox app. It would be much more natural that the Camera app deletes the Photos after they were sent - to whatever cloud or other app. Dropbox is about syncing files, and it is the best in this discipline. Any feature beyond that is a loss of focus, and every feature is a potential bug. Dropbox should not strive to solve other apps shortcomings. My opinion.

[imightbewrong]

I disagree - the Dropbox App is what is uploading the files to Dropbox - not the camera app.  The camera app has no idea about this uploading activity - it is not sending.  The Dropbox app should have two options at a minimum - copy or move - IMO.

[frankiebuckle]

Hello - I am uploaded a load of files to dropbox and want to delete them off my phone, but some aren't uploading (panoramas and videos) and some are. I would like to know if there is a way for DB to delete the ones which are already uploaded off my phone but of course not the ones which are not. If I do a manual delete all, I will delete the ones which aren't uploaded. I have over 1000 photos - as you can imagine I do not want to manually cross check!

[Mark · Accepted solution]

No there isnt Frankie, as unfortunately has been said in this thread.