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Forum Discussion
Why does Dropbox insist on renaming my files?
2020: "Stop renaming my files! (on auto phone upload)" by BoxyBeat https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-installs-integrations/Stop-renaming-my-files-on-auto-phone-upload/td-p/391599 Dropbox r...
So why does Dropbox insist on renaming my files?... because they/it can. It is that simple I'm afraid.
Megan
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi usrx, let's get right into this!
Can you give me a tad more info? Do you upload content manually or via camera uploads?
How is the name before, and how is it after the upload?
Keep me posted.
Same as BoxyBeat, and I am upset for the same reason as he/she is/was and it has to do with things he/she mentioned already, like being able to "keep track easier for missing files, [interrupted] transfers, moved files and so on". The only difference is that I take mostly photos, and not so much videos, so to me, it's completely uninteresting if the Dropbox app uses the timestamp from when the file was created or when it was last modified (in case of video files, according to referenced discussion above). But sure, I will give you some examples.
This is the naming convention that my phone uses to store the files in memory and how I want to keep them.
Format: YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.jpg
Example file: 20210102_183405.jpg
This is the naming convention that the Dropbox app on my phone uses when the files are uploaded to Dropbox using the camera upload option.
Format: YYYY-MM-DD HH.MM.SS.jpg
Example file: 2022-06-24 19.14.54.jpg
There is a bit more to it when it comes to photo files that are taken within the same second. So the phone will add a suffix like "_03.jpg" and if I recall correctly the Dropbox app will turn that into "-03.jpg". I don't have a real example of this at the moment, I would need to spend another fifteen minutes searching for it as it's not very common that more than one photo is taken within a second, and it usually does that when you take burst shots, which I don't normally do. There are some more situations like that, but the general rule is what you have above.
So in summary...
File is stored as:
20210102_183405.jpg
File is mangled by Dropbox into:
2021-01-02 18.34.05.jpg
I expect the file to have this name on my computer after it has been uploaded/synced from my phone using Dropbox camera upload:
20210102_183405.jpg
Instead, Dropbox downloads/syncs to my computer a file with a name like this:
2021-01-02 18.34.05.jpg
So my question is, why are you doing this? And why are you not allowing people to change this behavior for years now? For example, does your backend not have the capacity to store or process files whose name contain underscores? A technical reason like that, I would understand, even if it seems highly unlikely. As it stands right now, you don't have a reason to do this (none has been given thus far in the many discussions on the topic). I on the other hand, like many users like me, do have a reason to keep the original file names and we have presented our reason.
Hi usrx
This doesn't help my case (as I just posted) but it may help you. A free, very powerful file-renaming utility that would definitely be able to restore all your filenames. Once you get the script right, which is done through drag-and-drop events based on search and replace, and the ability test before executing (along with undo), you could run it on a hundred-thousand files and they'd all be fixed in seconds.
JoeJoe's freeware utilities - [Rename Master]
Go back to: 20210102_183405.jpg quickly! Even when there are additional appendages like _3 and crap, that little utility can weed them out and do what you like with them.
That's for you and everyone else who may stumble upon these grounds.
Be well!
Danny
Seriously, we have to download another app to get our files named the way we want?
Why, Dropbox, does everything have to be so corporate? Corporate, in the sense that Dropbox functions don't make sense, so they need to be explained by tech employees. Often to perfectly intelligent and sometimes very geeky customers --- let's raise our hands! 🙂
I can't believe they still have not fixed this. Unbelievable! That proves me right! They don't want to. They don't have to. So they don't. As simple as that. Good thing I no longer use Dropbox. But I keep getting notifications by e-mail from people that like and comment on this topic. So the problem is still there, and it's still relevant. But Dropbox doesn't care. According to a recent newsletter from February, they are rolling out new toys like "Dropbox Sign" and "DocSend". (I have an idea of what that is, but will likely never need it, and there are likely millions of users who will never use that.) They spread themselves thin by focusing their attention on building these complex new toys that no one asked for, instead of getting the simple things done right. Interesting company... this "Dropbox".
You may look at this new development like "Dropbox Sign" and think the company is growing up, it's finally crawling out of its blue box and thinking outside the box. But I look at this and think it's a company that no longer knows who they are. The whole product offering feels much more bloated and confusing. What started out as a USB flash drive on the web, is now everything but that. For God's sake, they can't even get the file names right! Right? If I copy my files from a mobile phone to a USB flash drive, using a USB OTG cable, I know my file names will not change. But you can't get that with Dropbox. They just have to change up your file names, for your uncalled "convenience". They have all sort of "smartness" built into the app now.
Thanks for the tip! I will check it out. For this type of thing I normally use one called Bulk Rename Utility (BRU). BRU is a bit complicated to use, so I'm hoping Rename Master is easier.
I will need this sort of utility very soon as I have convinced my brother to stop using Dropbox and switch over to OneDrive and he has a lot of old files from Dropbox that need to be renamed.
I have added him to my OneDrive subscription, so he will have a premium service, free of charge, that's just as good as Dropbox. But the thing is, Dropbox saved him once when his old Galaxy phone just died one day, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason. It still had some battery charge in it when he left it to charge up, and minutes later when he came back to check the status, the phone was no longer responding. It was completely dead. Thankfully he had Camera Upload enabled in Dropbox, so all the photos and videos were safe in the cloud. Samsung took care of the rest with its own cloud, for things like contacts, messages, etc. So when he ordered the latest Galaxy phone he could simply restore all the data. He is therefore very grateful to Dropbox and reluctant to "drop" (let go of) the Dropbox.
This story just shows what an immense value that Camera Upload feature can have! The only issue is, it has now become my job to consolidate all his different "Dropbox, Dropbox (2), Dropbox (3), ..." folders into one, and then merge everything with his old photo collection that's named differently. We're talking about some 2000 files in his Dropbox folders. He was constantly running out of space on Dropbox, so he kept moving those files out to the desktop on the computer, to make room for new photos. Now he has several of those. He's not very technical and so he still doesn't fully understand how this cloud thing works. I was going to buy a Dropbox premium subscription for him, to make it easy on him, giving him a lot more room to play around with. But it's difficult to buy something in someone else's name. And since I have decided to transition to OneDrive, it made more sense that I help him do the same.
So again, thanks for sharing your view and thanks for the tip about Rename Master! I am still hopeful that Dropbox will do the right thing and either allow users to disable this in the settings or expand on this idea (fully implement it) and allow users to make their own naming rules.
Be well and be safe!
This is exactly the issue I'm facing with cameras uploads from mobile. (The file name changes upon upload to Dropbox, so I can't easily make sure the files on my phone have actually been backed up.) This was previously not an issue but now I have a few years of built up files that I don't feel fully confident in deleting because I'm not sure if all of them got backed up or not without manually comparing file sizes.
- Jay
Hi usrx, we appreciate the feedback on this matter. The camera upload feature currently doesn't allow any customization when it comes to renaming the files during the upload process.
If you wish, you can suggest this change as a new idea for other users to vote on, in order to pass it onto the dev team for their consideration.
I know that. In fact, I am not even asking for a way to customize the way that Dropbox renames files. It should not be renaming them in the first place. At all! I simply ask that it leaves be my file names. This should be the default: not touching people's file names.
What do you achieve by renaming the files anyway? You're not filing them in different folders automatically for organizational purposes, not by default anyway. They are all just dumped in the same camera upload folder anyhow, just with different names compared to the original files on the phone.
This is not a new idea and not a new suggestion. Others have asked for this for a long time, long before me, and it was never forwarded to the right team (dev team or whatever the right team is) for consideration. Not that I am aware of or have found evidence of on the forum. For example Pete3000 has made this suggestion, but his suggestion was never forwarded due to premature closure of the topic. The topic was reportedly closed because of lack of support by other users.
How can other users have a chance to support the idea if you keep closing the topic before it gains traction?
This is what Walter from Dropbox had to say on that:
"This idea has been closed due to inactivity and can no longer be voted for. If you have a similar idea please share it with us here."Pete3000created the topic on 04-03-2021 (April), and it was closed by Walter in November of the same year, 7 months later. Why even close it? Was it somehow problematic to leave it open? I have been online long enough to know that there are forums that don't close old topics until they are at least 5 years old or 60 months, and only then do they force people to start a new discussion on the same topic. Others still never close a topic of discussion, unless they have a very good reason to do so.
In fact, Walter's assertion that it's no longer possible to vote on the suggested idea is false. I was able to vote on it a few days ago. Maybe you don't have your forum settings configured right? It should not be possible to vote if what you say is true.
Anyway... I give up! I have made it more than clear what's going on here and how I feel about it. If you don't want to listen to what users are saying, that's OK. You don't need to do a thing anymore. I have found my solution: OneDrive. I have already had a subscription plan with OneDrive for a few years now, but I was stuck on using Dropbox for camera uploads, and I used OneDrive in conjunction with Dropbox for certain things, since the year when Dropbox decided to lower the number of synced devices from 5 to 3. Today I disabled the camera upload in Dropbox on my phone and enabled it in OneDrive, and guess what?... it does not rename my files! Good news for me, bad news for you. Good bye!
Hello Dropbox,
I just switched from iCloud Photos to Dropbox Camera Uploads, and after moving some 2.7k+ files I realized they were all renamed. The original filenames were IMG_####.JPG for example. Now they are all a date and time. The old filenames are not even stored in metadata. This makes it impossible for me to check this batch for duplicates against a 15-year collection of some 42,000 other files. I definitely need the default device-given filenames, not forced renames.
You half-way integrated a potentially good idea, why would do you do that? It was absolutely important from the beginning to either provide users full control over the naming convention, or simply turn yours off and keep the original filenames.
Yet, how many years has it been like this? I just found this out after it happened. You guys still don't want to do such a simple thing properly? I can't imagine the flow of files within your userbase, all of them subject to this. If I just ran 42k files through your naming convention by accident I'd be sick! Bewildering to think of users who probably have.
My direct next step is a dive into the iCloud trashcan. I will not use Dropbox Camera Uploads until this renaming idea is either done right or made possible to disable completely.
The simplest lack of thoughtfulness can really put a bullet in a good idea. That's a shame for what is otherwise a very impressive and helpful tool. I do love Dropbox. I don't love half-baked implementations that are ignored for years.
Danny
