Feature Request: Camera Upload - Ability to select a folder on mobile

General Discussions Plex Features
1

Just wondering if at any time we can pick and choose which pictures and videos to upload. My friends and I have a “unique” sense of humor that I don’t necessarily want all my pictures to be uploaded to Plex where my wife can see them. hahaha She would never be mad, but she would probably ask what the hell my friends and I were talking about. hehe

4 Likes
2

I doubt we’ll implement selective Camera Upload unless it becomes something a ton of folks want but I don’t know any app that has camera upload that has this functionality.

3

I just figured treat it like a Google Drive or Dropbox where we can upload what we want. Not really sure why that would make a difference. And that’s just my ignorance, not trying to be a smart ass. :slight_smile:

4

Both Google Photos Uploader and Dropbox Camera Uploader does not selectively allow you to upload files in their iOS apps, and since we don’t have generic file management tools built into our app, I doubt we’ll go down that route.

The best solution is to manage/edit them on a computer and copy them over manually. Hopefully someday we’ll support choosing a album on mobile to upload, instead of trying to do the entire device.

(Mind if I rename the title of this ‘FEATURE REQUEST: Add the ability to select a single folder to upload to Plex on mobile device’?)

5

Thank you, and yes, you may absolutely change the title. I’m not the best with those. :smile:

6

I think this is related: can we ask Plex to backup “What’sapp Images” i.e. Photos and Videos that don’t appear in the default Gallery? I hope this is on topic for this thread - it’s the one thing Google Photos does (selectively) that Plex doesn’t.

7

is ‘WhatsApp images’ a folder on the filesystem somewhere, or can you only view them in WhatsApp? What platform are you on, iOS or Android?

I wonder if Google Photos is intrusively going through the filesystem and uploading files that aren’t explicitly in the Photos Library. We currently do not do that, because its invasive, but we could put in exceptions for specific paths.

8

@keithah - I’m on Android. The full list of “folders” available to back up, in addition to the default Camera Images, are:

Download
Movies
Screenshots
Talon
Telegram
WallPaper
WhatsApp Images
WhatsApp Video

Yes, I think it is simply discovering folders that have photos/videos in them.

9

Having the ability to select which photos are uploaded would be very useful. As a home media server I certainly don’t want all photos on my phone uploaded for the family’s viewing pleasure.

I bought the Plex pass to take advantage of this Photos feature but I’m disappointed it’s so limited. It would be great if there was an option to upload everything (as it stands currently) and manual selection or Album on phone.

Ideally, this would work in the same way that OneDrive, Dropbox, etc. allow you to select in the Photos App, then upload to your Plex server.

A sample use case would be after a family vacation. Each household member would upload their choice photos to Plex central location for a quick and easy slideshow presentation.

10

Agreed that selective upload would be nice (or perhaps just exclusions).

But, I think an even more useful one would be an option to disable uploading of videos, since I don’t generally want them uploading, due to the fact that they take forever to upload and it keeps photos from uploading, while waiting for a 3GB movie file to upload over my home internet connection.

Just give us a drop-down to select photos, video, or both for what to upload.

Or maybe do it on the server, and have each library/album able to be filtered to whether photos, videos, or both are allowed to be uploaded, and then just have the mobile client respect that setting.

11

Just to pile on here, what I would love is the following:

  1. Toggle to allow/disallow video uploads.
  2. Toggle to allow/disallow photo uploads (I mean, maybe video only is someones scenario).
  3. Select or deselect folders that hold images.

For sure, the default location Android puts camera images is NOT the only location for images. There are separate folders for images from Messaging, Telegram, WhatsApp, WeChat, etc. And all of these can normally be viewed (either separate or aggregate) in the particular phones Gallery app (I have a OnePlus 5, and I have the option to view together or seperately).

It’s really confusing to users that the only media that gets uploaded is only from “Camera” since those are only a subset of images they will see in their Gallery.

I get that the other apps referred to for comparison don’t do this but…the first app that does this will be the most usable/friendly one. :slight_smile:

12

Is this ever going to happen? I can’t imagine anybody wants ALL their photos uploaded to a sharing server. We use ours for sharing family photos and videos, we don’t want our work photos, photos documenting a car accident, photos of friends, etc showing up - let alone in the same library as the family photos.

Once I move a photo to my family photos folder, however, uploading automatically would be VERY welcome. This also gives me a chance to delete the blurry photos before upload.