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Forum Discussion
Refuses to preserve correct creation date
I have tried to upload files without losing the original creation date on this main account(which I have a 2TB subscription on), and on a new non-subscription account that I created on a device I’ve never used this account on (to see if it was only this account). Neither will preserve the original creation dates.
I have my main account on my iPhone and a Kindle Fire tablet. The other account is on a cheap android phone I use mostly for a couple of games. I recently downloaded the Dropbox app for iPhone. I’ve had the app on my Kindle Fire for years. On my iPhone I used to just use in-app Dropbox integrations to upload from my phone.
The last time I used it on my Kindle Fire (which I mainly only use in ‘Show Mode’ on its dock now) it WAS preserving the original creation dates of the files I uploaded. I know because I put those that had all traces of a creation date scrubbed in a folder named in reference to there being no date. I also put those that somehow got dated back in the 1960s & 1970s in a folder named to reflect that, & I put those with the actual creation dates still on them in the parent folders(that also contained the above referenced folders as well as folders named to reflect some video files that I purposely managed to change the date for on my Kindle before I uploaded them to Dropbox).
There are also some files that I uploaded from my iPhone 2-3 years ago through various in-app Dropbox integrations that also managed to preserve the correct file creation dates. I know because they’re mainly files I found on some of my old email accounts and saved to one of the apps I eventually used to back them up to my Dropbox account with.
My major problem is that I can’t remove the VAST majority(probably 95-99%) of the pics from my iPhone after backing up, syncing, or even syncing a few at a time because that vast majority happen to be screenshots that are heavily dependent upon having their original creation dates intact AND being backed up in the order in which they were taken.
I have to keep many organized by a date that’s visibly correct in case I need them to prove the date and time of certain purchases from services that require screenshots to prove everything I may ever have to have them as proof of. And yes there are services that require this very specifically so I have tons of screenshots for just about everything I could eventually need to have for proof of anything I ever did/earned/etc.
I also have about a years worth of backlogged screenshots for 3 teams I run on a game where I have to screenshot massive amounts of teammate data & tournament data every weekend. There’s actually 3-4 years backlogged for 2 of those teams. If I lose a single creation date or the pics upload out of order, both of which keep happening, it will make it impossible to piece the broken pieces of my Gallery’s timeline back together.
The out of order part is not a tiny glitch either but an EXTREME problem as it is uploading many pics/videos way ahead of others (instead of going in order from newest to oldest OR vice versa… either direction would keep the correct order but there’s not even an option for how the user would prefer to upload their files within an app… the main Gallery app in this case). And I’m talking about a gallery with more than 4 years worth of important media I need to back up, while maintaining easy access via the cloud, that keeps getting uploaded like scrambled eggs. Even when I try to upload just 3-10 pics at a time, instead of syncing the entire thing conveniently, they keep getting uploaded out of order. Even when I tried backing up one of my gallery folders a few at a time and it oddly was showing the “presumed” correct creation dates, it still kept naming at LEAST one of each small batch I was uploading using the current date and time. And even the ones that appeared to be named after their correct creation dates were not all exactly in order. So that means that when sorted by date (or file name), if they were not in the order they were in the original gallery, then they can’t have the actual correct file creation dates as a filename if they can’t be sorted in order (that’s not even counting every few pics that it keeps randomly naming using the current date).
- Nancy
Dropbox Staff
Hi AgentOrange, and thanks for posting on our forum.
I’ve passed this along as feedback to our team, so that they can also see your comments about this and take them into consideration.
If there’s something else I can help you with, please let me know.
I also have the same problem with the original 'creation date' being changed to the date the file was uploaded to dropbox. I've read other forums where people complain about the dates changing when downloading the file(s) from DB onto their device, but I also experience this when uploading to DB from my phone.
I tried uploading a file from a desktop computer and the date the doesn't change, but always changes when uploading from a mobile device.
There have been no updates--how does one upload files to from a device to a specific folder on Dropbox and maintain the original creation date? Certainly I can do this if I use an external hard drive for example. As we speak, I am cleaning up my Mac and realizing that I can't sort by date because they are all dated now.
Thanks
- @Nancy Thanks for passing it along.
Yes I do have some other things. I can’t view file info/details on any files, except for photos (& I have to have them open to see the small amount of info it will even show). And even then many of them that do have a creation date (because under the photo section they are listed under months and days… no time of day however) don’t show any trace of it in the info. Many pics, even though they are ordered by a “modified” date, don’t show any date at all in the info. All non-photo files have no way I can find to view the metadata info at all.
This is on the iPhone app. The app I have for my Kindle Fire is a version from years ago and it works fine as far as the last time I used it on there. I haven’t had to back up anything else on there in awhile.
Also is there a way to search by the following file types without having to type in a file name? I need to pull up all files of certain types because many are filed in various mass backup batches under folders named for when or where I backed them up. They contain a bunch of different files that are unrelated to each other. Audio, Video, Image, Document, etc… and possibly various file types within those types. I need to be able to find all my audio files, and my video files, and also my Documents, Zipped, etc files without typing in a name (which I don’t always know and just filters out the rest of them from being displayed). Yesterday I tried to single out all my audio files to find my song ideas and other audio files and hopefully try to re-sort them into folders where I can more easily locate what I’m looking for at any point in time, but it kept asking for text with which to search. I tried using “*” and it said it had to be at least 2 characters so I tried “**” but it didn’t bring anything up. Usually an “*” is used to search for any title under a category but it wouldn’t work on here.- Megan
Hi AgentOrange, in regards to the first mention, about the info, and the details of your files, can I ask for some screenshots, please?
As for your search question, we do offer a feature called full-text search, which allows you to search files by name, extension (file type) or keyword within the file.
If you're on a paid account, you should have access to it and you can read more about it here.
