I think that’s how auto upload is designed to be. If you want to upload everything in your camera folder, just use the normal upload. I personally use foldersync for it’s large number of configuration options and owncloud app to view file afterwards.
I think owncloud is basically useless without this ability. Most folks have an existing gallery on their phone before they install and setup owncloud and want everything in their gallery synced. For me, this is the entire purpose of using owncloud, to replace upstream cloud (google, verizon, etc) with my own cloud. Without the ability to connect my existing phone to my owncloud and have owncloud autosync my existing phone gallery to my owncloud install, owncloud is a pointless service.
i’m not sure if you have missed the post of @ioneng one post above yours? If i understand this post correctly you can already upload all existing files of your gallery via the app to ownCloud and then use the automatic upload functionality to upload new done pictures.
Owncloud app already does what we require. When you set it up the first time, just go to All files and choose the remote directory where you want to send all your files, you can then try to upload and select all files in a local directory. After this initial upload is done, you can go to Auto upload and enable this feature for individual folders. I can’t say how Auto-upload would perform for your particular set-up, but it worked for me most of the time.
I am agree with @hemna . I have 1000+ photos when I moved to ownCloud. Uploading manually is very hard. Android app should implement this feature. Using separate application for uploading old photos is not an ideal solution at all. @ioneng foldersync also has a lot of ads in free version.
if you think the Android app is missing a feature then i think it would be better to request this at GitHub · Where software is built because i’m not sure if the ownCloud development team is noticing the feature request posted in this forums.