Google Drive Not Uploading From Your Phone? Fixes for Android and iPhone

You pick a photo or a PDF in the Google Drive app, tap Upload, and the upload fails or the file never shows up in Drive. Most of the time the fix is a mobile data setting: Drive is only allowed to upload over Wi-Fi, and you’re not on Wi-Fi.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through what to do when you see Google Drive not uploading from phone problems on Android or iPhone, starting with the fix that works most often and ending with a quick test from a computer.

Failing or just waiting? Tell them apart first

Before you change anything, look at what the app shows next to your file. There are two different problems, and they have different fixes.

• The file waits: it sits in the list with a waiting status and never starts.
• The file fails: the upload starts, then stops, or the file simply isn’t in Drive later.

If your files are stuck in the queue, my guide on Google Drive waiting to upload goes deeper into that status. This post is about phones that won’t finish an upload at all.

Here’s how to upload from the app, so you know you’re using the right button. On both Android and iPhone, open Google Drive, tap Add (the plus button), tap Upload, and choose your files.

Fix 1: Let Drive use mobile data

This is the cause I’d check first. If you’re away from Wi-Fi and Drive is set to transfer files only over Wi-Fi, nothing goes up until you join a network. To you, it just looks like the upload never worked.

You’ll know this applies if your uploads go through the moment you get home or connect to office Wi-Fi.

On Android: turn off “Transfer files only over Wi-Fi”

1. Open the Google Drive app.
2. Tap Menu at the top left, then Settings.
3. Under Data usage, turn off Transfer files only over Wi-Fi.
4. Go back to your files and try the upload again.

Google says this setting only appears when your phone can use mobile data. If it isn’t there, your phone is Wi-Fi only, so move on to the next fix.

On iPhone: turn on cellular data for Drive

Google says you can choose between mobile data and Wi-Fi only on an iPhone too, and it points to Apple’s per-app setting. Open the iPhone Settings app, tap Cellular, scroll to the app list, and make sure Drive is switched on.

If Drive is off there, the app can’t send anything over mobile data, no matter how strong your signal is.

Fix 2: Free up space in your Google storage

When your Google storage is full, you can’t upload new files to Drive. On a phone this often looks like a random failure, because the app doesn’t make the storage meter obvious.

Your space is shared across Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. A free account gets 15 GB in total, so a busy inbox or a phone that backs up every photo can fill it without you adding a single file to Drive.

There’s one catch people miss. Google says uploads count toward your storage even when you upload into a folder someone else owns. So a teammate’s shared folder won’t save you space.

1. On a computer, open drive.google.com and click Storage in the left menu.
2. Check the used amount at the top of the page.
3. Look at the list below it, which shows your files from largest to smallest, and delete what you don’t need.

My demo account is on a 5 TB plan, so it has plenty of room, but a 15 GB account can hit the limit fast.

Files in Trash still count until they’re deleted for good, so empty the trash in Google Drive once you’re sure. If the meter says full and you can’t find the files, read why Drive storage is full with no files.

Restart the phone and update the Drive app

If the settings and storage look fine, the app itself may be stuck. These three steps take a few minutes and clear up a lot of odd upload behavior.

Check the connection, then restart your phone

Google’s upload troubleshooting starts with your internet connection. Open a website in your phone’s browser, then switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data (or the other way around) and try the upload again.

Still nothing? Restart the phone. On Android, Google says to press and hold the Power button for about 30 seconds, then tap Restart if you see it. On an iPhone, turn it off and back on the usual way.

If Drive keeps losing its connection even on good Wi-Fi, see why Google Drive keeps going offline.

Update Google Drive

An old version of the app can fail on uploads that a current one handles fine.

1. On Android, open the Play Store and tap your profile icon at the top right.
2. Tap Manage apps & devices, then update Google Drive if it’s listed.
3. On an iPhone, open the App Store, tap your profile picture, and update Google Drive from the list.

Clear the Drive cache on Android

If the app still misbehaves, a force stop and a cache clear give it a fresh start. Menu names vary by phone maker. On a Pixel, Google’s steps are:

1. Open Settings, tap Apps, then See all apps.
2. Tap Drive, then Force stop.
3. Tap Storage & cache, then Clear cache.

Stick to Clear cache, not Clear storage. Google calls clearing cache a short-term fix, so it’s not something to do every week. My post on how to clear cache in Google Drive covers the web side too.

Check whether Google Drive is down

Sometimes it really isn’t your phone. If uploads fail on every network and every device, check the Google Workspace Status Dashboard. It’s a public page, so you don’t need to sign in.

Find the Google Drive row and look at today’s date. A green check means Google isn’t reporting a problem. Anything else means you’ll have to wait for Google to fix it.

If Drive shows a server error on your computer as well, my guide to the Google Drive failed server error walks through that one.

Still failing? Test the upload from a computer

A computer test tells you whether the problem is your phone or your account. Copy the file to a computer, or pick a similar one, and upload it on drive.google.com with New > File upload.

When I uploaded two small CSV files for a bakery client’s order list in November 2026, the upload panel said 2 uploads complete with a green check next to each file. That’s what success looks like.

If the computer upload works, your account and storage are fine, and the fix is on the phone side: the data setting, the app version, or the connection. If it fails on the computer too, look at storage and the status dashboard again.

Big batches take a while on any device. In my test with three videos, Drive sent one file at a time and the others waited their turn.

For huge videos, my guide on how to upload large files to Google Drive has the steps, and you can cancel a Google Drive upload if a batch is stuck.

One more computer-only check: Google says some Drive settings can only be changed from a computer. If Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files are the ones that fail, open the gear icon, then Settings, and look at Convert uploads.

When it’s checked, Drive turns Office files into Google files, and converted files have lower limits (50 MB for documents, 100 MB for Sheets and Slides). Leave it unchecked to upload files as they are. The Offline box below it doesn’t affect uploads.

If the upload panel shows an error code, Google Drive upload failure 38 and the Drive error list with Retry all explain what to do next.

A few more phone guides you might find handy:

• upload a folder from an Android phone
• upload voice memos to Google Drive
• how shared folders use your storage
• why Google Drive is so slow

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