# Back up your phone's photos and videos

Turn on automatic photo backup in the Drime mobile app, choose what is backed up and when, and find your photos in the Camera uploads folder.

Updated: 2026-10-22  
Source: https://drime.cloud/support/mobile/back-up-your-photos

The Drime mobile app can back up the photos and videos of your phone automatically. Backup is off until you turn it on.

## Turn on photo backup

1. In the Drime app, tap your avatar at the top left, then **Auto-upload**.

   You can also go to **Settings** \> **Backup**, or tap **Turn on camera uploads** on the Home screen.

2. Turn on backup.

   The switch then reads **Backup is ON**.

3. Allow Drime to access your photos when your phone asks.

   Without this permission, the app shows **Photo access required**.

Backup is set per workspace: each workspace has its own setting.

To follow the backup, tap **View Backup Status** in **Settings** \> **Backup**. When everything is done, it shows **Everything is backed up**. If photos stay waiting or in error, see [My phone photos are not backing up](https://drime.cloud/support/mobile/photos-not-backing-up).

## Where your photos go

Your photos are saved in the Camera uploads folder at the root of the workspace, in a sub-folder named after your phone. The folder keeps this English name whatever the language of the app.

Live Photos keep their motion. A photo you deleted from Drime is not backed up again.

## Choose what is backed up and when

In **Settings** \> **Backup**, you can:

- in **Back up...**, back up **All my photos**, or only the new ones;
- turn on **Include videos** (off by default);
- turn on **Organize by month**, to sort photos into folders such as 2026/09 (off by default, in recent versions of the app);
- turn on **Use mobile data** (off by default, so photos are backed up over Wi-Fi only);
- turn on **Require charging**, to back up only while the phone charges (off by default);
- keep **Auto-resume transfers** on, so transfers resume on their own after an interruption (on by default);
- turn on **Sync albums to cloud** (off by default);
- turn on **Preserve media folder paths**, to keep the folders your photos are in on the phone (off by default);
- turn on **Sync deletions** (off by default, in recent versions of the app): a photo you delete on your phone goes to the Drime trash, and when you delete a backed-up photo in Drime, the app asks before deleting it from your phone too.

To back up only some folders of your phone:

- on Android, choose them in **Upload from**;
- on iPhone, go to **Gallery** \> Albums \> Device, open a folder and turn on its Backup switch (Auto-upload from this device folder).

On Android, you can also turn on **Priority background service**. This service keeps a permanent notification and uses more battery.

## Good to know

- Backup stops when your Drime storage is full.
- On an iPhone, backup in the background depends on when iOS lets the app run.
- On Android, turning off battery optimisation for Drime helps backup run in the background, especially on Samsung, Xiaomi and Huawei phones.

## If it doesn't work

| What you see | What to do |
| --- | --- |
| **Photo access required** | Drime cannot read your photos. Allow it in your phone's settings, in the permissions of the Drime app, then come back to the app. |
| Photos do not appear in another workspace | Backup is set per workspace. Turn it on in the workspace where you want your photos. |
| Backup stopped | Your Drime storage may be full, or the phone is waiting for Wi-Fi or for charging. See [My phone photos are not backing up](https://drime.cloud/support/mobile/photos-not-backing-up). |