Why does dropbox not allow syncing to Android

[David C.135]

I find it hard to believe that in the age of mobile devices and Android usage that dropbox is not actively seeking solutions to issues mobile dropbox users are experiencing.

Why can I not move my dropbox store/folder to my SD card??

Why can I not choose files or folders to sync on my Android device??

Dropbox needs to pull it's finger out, I am paying good money for this service.

Not happy about this at all.

[Kaz]

The Dropbox App is not designed to sync files from your Dropbox account to your mobile device. The features that the application has are:

- File uploads
- File downloads
- Option to open files with a specific application (if the application supports that file type)
- Move/Delete/Rename files and manipulate the folder structure of your Dropbox folder.
- Share links
- Share using other applications (if the application supports sharing)

This has the advantages of not requiring unnecessary space on your mobile device or using up large amounts of bandwidth, which are large concerns for mobile application development.

However this is great feedback! Can I ask some more questions? In particular I am interested in:

• You mentioned you wish to move the Dropbox folder to your SD card. What do you mean by this, ie what is the actual issue you are having. Is the Dropbox runtime folder too large for your Android device? Or do you wish all your Dropbox files synced to the sd card. 
• You mentioned you do want the latter, to be able to sync files to your device. What do you use the Dropbox app for? What files do you need synced and how does syncing the files make your life easier? 
• Have you used favouriting files? Where does this fall short?

We appreciate the feedback you have given, these additional questions would give us some more context on how you actually use the app. Thank you!

[David C.135]

Hi Kaz,

On the most part I am happy with Dropbox however the not syncing to the SD is poor.

I have a lot of txt files which are pretty tiny in size 2.5MB and I have them seperated in to many different folders, (they're my go to help files I have created myself). Sometimes I am in places, (DC's), where a phone signal or wireless is out of the question and I'd relly like to have access to my files. I have tried the favorites but it was restricted to files alone which is not what I want. 

What dropbox for mobile needs is the option to move a complete folder to the SD and ensure that any changes made in the actual folder are reflected in the mobile folder.

I also have certain videos etc that I like to download for offline viewing and the phone itself never has enough space so moving stuff to the SD is essential.

So in short dropbox on mobile works fine but we definitely need a mechanism to allow us to sync cetain files/folders to the sd.

Cheers

David

[Guillaume L.7]

N'utilisez pas de mot anglais. Sans ça on ne va pas comprendre OK. Merci de votre compréhension

[Felix S.9]

This is an old thread, but I would try to provide some feedback

I use Dropbox to sync files between computers. That means laptops, desktops, and yes, tablets. I also use it on my phone, to access a few of the files in my account. I don't use my phone to edit the files in my dropbox. However, I do use my tablet to edit those files, and that's where the problem begins.

I need offline access to all the files inside a folder. First Dropbox shortcoming. It's not possible to select the offline accessibility for a whole folder. I need all the files inside that folder, and I don't want to select manually all of them (more than 500). I also want to move the storage of the Dropbox cache to my external SD Card, instead of using the default device memory. It doesn't have to be the whole cache. If it's just the offline files/folders, perfect.

That way I could work on my tablet as in a laptop. Maybe the Dropbox App need a tablet version (in the Google Play store says: "designed for phones"). Seriously looking for a Dropbox alternative that doesn't restricts my workflow

[David C.135]

Is it not about time Dropbox responded to this?

Plus 1 Felix S.

[Rakesh M.1]

Come on Dropbox, this is ridiculous. I simply don't understand why can't you provide an app that syncs all files. Is that that hard for you people to develop?

There are half a dozen paid apps in the play store that would do this for me. Or is it that they pay you people for not providing this feature?

[Richard C.36]

My need is simple: I'm running our of space on the "phone" storage and i need to have several large folders available off-line. I have plenty of storage on the SD card for this. I can, of course, copy the files from my computer to the SD card manually, but it would be so much better if it would sync automatically.

I can see the concern of designers - what if someone changes the SD card? There is, obviously, a solution for this but it may be a bother for the designers to get to it.

Dick

[Ian W.28]

I'm using dropbox to store boarding passes so I can use my phone instead of paper. Airports often have crappy wireless or none at all - I don't want to rely on that to be able to see my boarding pass. Unfortunately, device memory is nearly full, so dropbox is refusing to store it offline. I have a 64GB SD card in my phone that is nearly empty....

[Richard C.36]

Having the ability of Dropbox use space in the SD card is critical to me. I need access to many files while out of WiFi range, but having them in memory has filled it up and some apps refuse to update (Facebook, for instance, until I painfully removed some files).Seems to me it should be easy for the experienced Dropbox programmers to do this. I DO use the selective sync feature but of course that doesn't solve the problem. I really hate to see that SD card almost empty while suffering with overloaded main memory.