Why does Dropbox insist on renaming my files?

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JosephCat wrote:

Interesting.  Perhaps I only added folder _other_ than the default DCIM recently and just don't remember doing it.  The logs on my system only go back three days, so that's not helpful.  🤔  Perhaps I was syncing other device folders automatically and then added them to the automatic camera upload, too.  That would explain the duplicates and name changes.

EDIT: There does not seem to be a selective sync for mobile, so that theory is out.

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As I noted in my previous comment, files can take many turns throughout their lifetime, before they reach their final resting place, in a cold storage (unless they are deleted). The same file can easily get out of sync if you work on multiple copies on multiple devices. Using Camera Upload is just one of several ways to transfer or copy files from device A to device B. Should those files ever be transferred back to device A, now with altered file names, then of course you're going to have duplicates! But if the Camera Upload feature of Dropbox app had not altered those file names during "camera upload" (transfer), your operating system would have most likely detected the error in your attempt and that you already have files with the same file names on the system. It would have prompted you to make a decision to either overwrite existing files, or skip the files you're trying to transfer or copy in, or to allow for the duplication to happen (usually with a "(2)" appended to the file name). As a result of Camera Upload altering file names during upload, this checking mechanism fails, on pretty much every operating system including Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS.

In other words, keeping file names consistent throughout their lifetime, is very important. For your own sanity, and to save time, by avoiding having to deal with duplicate files as a result of not having a strict naming convention. Dropbox has a strict naming convention alright, but they have one that they impose on you, whenever you use the Camera Upload feature. This is why I stopped using Dropbox altogether. I did try to persuade them to consider changing this, or at very least letting users decide for themselves if they want to alter file names upon using Camera Upload feature, or not to. But they have stiffly decided not to listen in on what I and others before me have said and complained about in other posts that they downplayed as irrelevant and closed due to inactivity.

However, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by selective sync, but you should be able to selectively upload files from a mobile device to Dropbox. For example when you select a few pictures and a folder that contains PDF documents, and you upload that manually, the file names will be preserved. It's only the Camera Upload feature that automatically and periodically uploads picture files only, that alters file names (on the files as uploaded, not the source files). I don't have Dropbox installed anymore, so I can't verify this, but that's how I remember it.