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Forum Discussion
Need to see creation date of backups loaded to Dropbox
I am using Dropbox as a secondary backup for customer files from my server. If a customer needs me to restore their data from a particular date I have to locate the files they want by the backup da...
Jay
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHi izzywizzy, the Dropbox site only shows the modification dates, not the creation dates of files.
Depending on how you upload files, the modification date would change to the current date/time, or remain as it was.
I only know of one upload method. I login to Dropbox, then pick UPLOAD files or folders then pick the location from my hard drive. If there is another way to upload files into Dropbox that does not change the date of my files please let me know. Having all my backups with the same date makes it hard to find the file I am looking when a customer asks for a restore from a particular date. I don't have time to click on every back up file from last month to figure out which one to download. Someone else recommended I download all the backup files back to my computer then I maybe can view creation date but it takes hours to download 100K files. I have been in business 25 years and have files than span many years. When looking for a file I typically search by date to narrow the search. I tried a test uploading files using Google Drive and they don't rename my files when I upload them. Since there doesn't appear to be a solution I may need to bite the bullet and switch to Google Drive. I hate that.
- Rich
Super User II
izzywizzy wrote:
If there is another way to upload files into Dropbox that does not change the date of my files please let me know.
Install the Dropbox application on your computer, place the files in the Dropbox folder and allow them to sync. All timestamp information will be retained. Uploading a file through the website "creates" the file on the Dropbox server, so the date created is the date uploaded. There's no way to change that. This is similar to downloading a file to your computer from the Internet; most often, the creation date of the file on your computer will be the date you downloaded it, and not the date the original file was created on the server you're downloading from.
I tried that some time ago but Dropbox has to be installed on my server, not my personal computer. Some customers complained that the service was slower than usual so I deleted the Dropbox sync connection which did speed up the server. This solution COULD work however if I can tell the DropBox sync to only sync during certain times of the day (like the middle of the night) to avoid overburdening the server during peak hours. Can I do that with the sync feature?
- Rich
izzywizzy wrote:
This solution COULD work however if I can tell the DropBox sync to only sync during certain times of the day (like the middle of the night) to avoid overburdening the server during peak hours. Can I do that with the sync feature?
Dropbox doesn't have a scheduling feature but you can do it yourself using a task scheduler to start and stop the Dropbox application. Just know that doing so is not officially supported.
