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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.
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.
Help!
Is there any other music composer who uses Dropbox that might help me with organization of my files to suit Dropbox?
Seems impossible for me to navigate the file system here.
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!
