Piktures, a free Android gallery app, shows the photos and videos of your Dropbox as albums, next to the ones on your phone. You sign in once with your Dropbox account, and nothing is copied to the phone until you ask for it.
Can an Android gallery app show my Dropbox photos?
Yes. Piktures opens your photos where they are: on the phone, on an SD card, and on the cloud services it connects to, Dropbox among them. It has no cloud of its own and no account to create.
Your Dropbox appears in the Storage tab, under CLOUD. Tap it, and its folders show up as albums in the Albums tab, the same way the phone's folders do. The first time, Piktures reads the whole folder structure, which can take a while; the next times are faster. Piktures keeps the thumbnails it has made in its cache, so albums open quickly.
Piktures is not associated with Dropbox, Inc.
How do I add Dropbox to Piktures?
- In the Storage tab, scroll down to ADD A NEW ACCESS and tap Dropbox.
- Tap GO TO DROPBOX.
- Sign in to Dropbox, in Dropbox's own sign-in screen, and allow Piktures to access your files.
Your first access is free, whether it is Dropbox, another cloud, or a network drive. A second access needs Premium or Prime. The details are in Dropbox and How to add a cloud.
What can I do with Dropbox photos in Piktures?
- Browse and view. Each Dropbox folder is an album, shown as a Grid or a List. Two things the phone's albums have are not offered on Dropbox: the Mosaic display, and a choice of sort order.
- Copy photos to the phone. Select them, tap the move icon, and pick an album of the phone. From a cloud, Piktures always copies: the originals stay on Dropbox.
- Send photos from the phone to Dropbox. Select them, tap the move icon, tap Current drive, choose Dropbox under CLOUD, open a folder and tap Move here or Copy here. After a move, Piktures sends the phone's copies to Deleted items, where you can still restore them. See Copy and move between drives.
- Back up your phone albums to Dropbox, automatically, with Premium or Prime. Piktures creates a
Pikturesfolder at the destination, sends each album once in full and then only the new photos, and never deletes anything there. See Back up and restore your photos.
With a paid plan, and during your first 3 days, a transfer runs in the background. With the free plan, a Please wait… window shows its progress, with an ad.
Piktures and Dropbox: the facts
| App | Piktures, by Diune, for Android 11 or later |
| Price | Free, with a few Google ads. The one-time No ads purchase removes them |
| Account | Your Dropbox account. No Piktures account |
| Sign-in | Dropbox's own sign-in screen, opened by the app |
| Where your photos show | In the Storage tab under CLOUD, then as albums in the Albums tab |
| What stays where | Photos stay on Dropbox until you copy them to the phone. Phone photos go to Dropbox only when you copy, move or back them up |
| Displays | Grid and List; no Mosaic |
| Sort orders | None to choose in a Dropbox album |
| Phone to Dropbox | Copy, move, and automatic backup (backup with Premium or Prime) |
| Dropbox to phone | Copy, never move |
| Connection | Browsing Dropbox uses your connection, Wi-Fi or mobile data. Automatic backup runs on Wi-Fi only by default |
| Other clouds | Google Drive, OneDrive, Koofr, Yandex Disk, Nextcloud, WebDAV servers, and SMB network drives. The first access is free |
Questions
Is Piktures free?
Yes. The free Basic plan shows a few ads and allows one remote access, so one Dropbox account. Your first 3 days are without ads. The one-time No ads purchase removes the ads; Premium, a one-time purchase, and Prime, a monthly subscription, also unlock more accesses and automatic backup. See In-app purchases.
Does Piktures upload my phone photos to Dropbox?
Not by itself. Your photos leave the phone only when you share them, or when you copy, move or back them up to a cloud or a drive you connected. No Piktures server receives them. See Our product principles.
Why can't I sort my Dropbox album?
In a Dropbox album, the Sort by window has no order to choose: it is a limit of the Dropbox access in Piktures. See Sorting items.
Why don't my latest Dropbox files show?
Remove your Dropbox access and add it back. See Refresh issues.
Can I copy photos from Dropbox to Google Drive or OneDrive?
Yes. In a Dropbox album, select the photos, tap the move icon, tap Current drive, and choose the other cloud under CLOUD. From a cloud, Piktures always copies: the originals stay on Dropbox.