Updated: How To Upload Photos To Facebook From (Some) Boost Phones

For as long as I can remember Boost Mobile users have been complaining of problems uploading photos to Facebook. Actually, for many users it flat out doesn’t work.

Update: Thanks to tips from BoostApps readers we now have solutions for uploading photos to Facebook from iDEN phones plus  the Mirro, Rambler, Incognito, Innuendo, Seek  and possibly other CDMA phones.  Here’s how:

For the Mirro and Rambler (tip by Shawn Grambo, aka shawn1g614 )

• Go to m.facebook.com with the phone browser.
• Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Photos.
• On the Photos page click Upload Photos, then click the Browse button.
• Click the My Pictures folder and choose the photo you want to upload. Hover over the filename to see a thumbnail.
• Enter a caption and click the Upload button.
• Uploading is slow. It takes about a minute on the Rambler.
• The Rambler browser has trouble keeping me logged into Facebook. Sometimes I get logged out while uploading and have to start over.

According to Facebook, users can upload photos by sending an MMS (a “picture message”) to a special email address. Every Facebook user has a different address, you can see yours by clicking “Upload Photos” from the Facebook Mobile homepage or by going to facebook.com/mobile with a PC browser. I’ve used the email technique with a Boost iDEN Motorola i776 and it does work. Not so with the Boost CDMA Motorola Ramber. Every time  I try to send a picture message to my Facebook email with the Rambler instead of a picture, this is what shows up in my Facebook status:

You have received a Multimedia Message – You received a Media Mail from {TRIMMED_SENDER} Click to view. http://mediamail.boostmobile.com/share.do?invite=XEOrJBm1Yk7pqhOhzUeQ

That’s all, no picture, just a link. Clicking the link does take you to the picture but that’s not a satisfactory solution. Facebook users expect the actual picture they uploaded to appear in their status or album on Facebook, not a link.

Boost Mobile has a Facebook fan page which is updated frequently.  They also have a Facebook discussion board. Often a user will complain about the Facebook picture uploading problem on the Boost’s Facebook Wall or on the dDiscussion board.  The official Boost Mobile account will typically respond with something like;

“Please try to send your pictures as an MMS to the Facebook short code 32665, as long as you have your phone registered to your Facebook account this should work.”

The only problem is that it doesn’t work. There is no error reported and it looks like the message is sent. If you’re on the Pay As You Go plan you even get charged 25 cents for sending a picture message. However, the picture never shows up on Facebook. Maybe it worked at one time but it doesn’t now.  You can send a text message to 32665 and it get’s posted as a status message but sending photos to that short code does nothing.

One thing I’ve heard that does work is using the built-in email app found in some Boost phones. On the Incognito and Rant, the app allows you attach pictures to emails.  Several users, both here on BoostApps and on the Boost Facebook discussion forum, have reported that they are able to send photos to Facebook using the Incognito’s email app and a Gmail account. However that doesn’t help the users of phones like my Rambler whoose enail apps don’t support attachments. If you have a Motorola i1, the official Facebook Android app does work for photo uploading  as well.

Facebook is the biggest Website in the US and the third largest in the world and is an important part of many Boost Mobile user’s lives. Posting photos is a popular activity on  Facebook and the fact that is doesn’t work with many Boost phones is inexcusable. I don’t know if the fault lies with Boost or Facebook, although I suspect it’s Boost as photo uploading (using your Facebook personal email addresses, not 32665) seems to work with every every other mobile carrier. Regardless of who is to blame Boost and Facebook need to work together to resolve this issue.  The current situation makes Boost look incompetent and I suspect causes more than a few Boost users to switch to a different carrier.

How about you? Can you post photos to Facebook using your Boost phone?  If you can leave a comment mentioning which Boost phone you use and how you upload the photos.