Dropbox Drains Battery

I've been reading several reports that the Dropbox app running on iPhone, Android and even Mac has resulted into quick battery drain. It looks like the excessive CPU usage, which is a result of continuous file sync between your computer / phone and Dropbox servers is the reason most batteries would drain out in just a few hours. Even the latest released MacBook Air 2013 with Haswell CPU is running out of battery in just 4-5 hours which otherwise lasts for about 12 hours.

Two months ago, Dropbox did delivery a patch for all their apps; but several users are still reporting the problem. Wondering if you've had similar experience on your phone. If some you could disable the app on you computers or phones and check whether there's a significant improvement over battery life, we'd confirm the problem.

Wondering what could be a fix for such apps that go very high on CPU?

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  • Ashraf HZ
    Ashraf HZ

    @Ash • Jul 8, 2013

    Can we adjust the file sync frequency?

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  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare

    @thebigk • Jul 8, 2013

    ashCan we adjust the file sync frequency?

    The OSX version of the app offers bandwidth check, but I'm not sure if it's really effective. I think the memory usage goes really high when the sync is in progress and that drains out the battery. Not sure about the mobile / tablet version of the app though.

    I've switched over to Amazon and all the photos are on the verge of being dumped into Amazon S3 or Glacier, if Amazon offers easy porting of the files.

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  • Abhishek Rawal
    Abhishek Rawal

    @abhishek-fg9tRh • Jul 8, 2013

    I don't think we need to keep the dropbox synced 24x7, So killing the process within system monitor saves the battery, doesn't it ? 😨

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  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare

    @thebigk • Jul 8, 2013

    If it's not synced all the time, then the whole purpose of using Dropbox as a quick cloud backup gets nullified. I think the real challenge for the dropbox team is to reduce the CPU usage when the file sync is in progress. That way, you can have the best of both worlds.

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  • Ashraf HZ
    Ashraf HZ

    @Ash • Jul 8, 2013

    How do you compare Dropbox to Google Drive?

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  • Abhishek Rawal
    Abhishek Rawal

    @abhishek-fg9tRh • Jul 15, 2013

    Cons :
    Dropbox drains battery.
    Dropbox have limited of 2GB Free data storage.

    Here's the gadget "PRISM-Free Storage" which offers free unlimited dropbox alternative : <a href="https://linuxgizmos.com/tiny-linux-device-offers-free-distributed-storage/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Tiny Linux device offers free unlimited DropBox alternative</a>
    I love this project 😍

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