Preserve file Creation Dates(and other metadata) in mobile app versions

[AgentOrange]

The ability to preserve, view, sort by, etc the original Creation Dates(and other metadata) of files is missing or severely limited in the Dropbox mobile apps.

People who don’t use Dropbox primarily for business purposes on a computer but, as many of us do these days, use our smartphones as our primary(or only) method of keeping track of media/documents/audio files/etc are having to deal with the frustrating situation of trying and failing to backup/reorganize/download to another mobile device/etc our files without losing this extremely important file metadata.

I can’t even view ANY file information on non-photo files, and the photos are difficult to even upload with a title that reflects the actual creation date.

If not uploaded at a painful 1 image at a time (and many times not even then) the file name will be changed to the upload date/time.

The creation date is ALWAYS listed as the upload time or the last time that it was moved, downloaded, re-uploaded, etc.

There’s no sort by CREATION date, only sort by Modification date which is just a complete denial of basic file management for those of us who manage all of our files on mobile phones and tablets.

We desperately need full file information accessibility for Dropbox mobile apps… ESPECIALLY the ability to preserve and sort by the ORIGINAL file creation dates… and to not lose access to those creation dates when moved, renamed, downloaded, re-uploaded, etc, but to keep them intact despite all modifications.

Creation dates and modification dates can be preserved separately without sacrificing one for the other, as long as the files’ metadata remains intact.

[Megan]

This idea is open. 

If you like this idea, please share how this would help you, and vote to show your support. 

Our top-voted ideas are shared with our product teams to investigate in our regular reviews.

[Megan]

This idea is open. 

If you like this idea, please share how this would help you, and vote to show your support. 

Our top-voted ideas are shared with our product teams to investigate in our regular reviews.

[KalenJ]

I completely agree with this. Google Photos keeps the original date and time and I’ve been using it but I like Dropbox better and I like the look and the file structure and the file management of Dropbox better. I do not like losing my files dates because of Dropbox. So I vote this idea.

[onlyone311]

also, it will be a good idea to add the last modification date to folder, because is empty, and when you update files on the folders, it's difficult to know what was the last modification

[AgentOrange]

@KalenJ That’s true. Thanks for pointing that out.

I checked out the Box backup app a few days ago and it also shows the creation date. I PREFER using Dropbox, mainly because I’ve been using it for years and all my files are already there but if it cannot preserve my creation dates for my pictures and let me view & sort by the creation dates for ALL my files, including the documents, audio files and all the other files that you can’t even see or edit a modified date for, I may have to switch over, at least my most important files and my subscription. Because I don’t have access to a computer currently and probably won’t for awhile. Like many people I know I do EVERYTHING using my iPhone and maintain access to my backed up files on a cheap android tablet, kindle fire, and any future non-computer devices I will eventually have to switch to. I’ll need to be able to access my files WITH their creation dates(and be able to sort by them, and now that I think about it, search by creation date range too) from all my past devices on future devices.

I had an old Dropbox account before the current one but it was deleted because I didn’t have a phone or computer from 2013-2018 and didn’t see the emails saying that they were going to remove it if I didn’t log into it. THAT I’m very upset about because I had important stuff in there and by the time I got the email account back up and running on my new phone, it was too late. I used the email account for my streaming services but I didn’t have a device to check the emails on which seems unfair. It wouldn’t have been that hard to send me a zipped file containing all my Dropbox files they were deleting… or at least a link to a zipped file.

In my opinion Box is much better than Google Photos in many respects including the creation date feature because, at least for me, Google Photos takes forever to upload and sometimes still doesn’t seem to actually UPLOAD my photos. It seems to just gain access to them on the device they were uploaded on UNLESS you manually add them individually to self-created albums. And even then they don’t stay in there if they haven’t completely downloaded from the iCloud backup that stores the original quality picture. I tried this. I couldn’t see my android pics on my iPhone unless I had put them in an album I myself created and added them to …& vice versa.

 But I would prefer to keep using my Dropbox account and subscription. I just need this VERY basic feature that I always ASSUMED was a given across ALL cloud storage services. Allowing computer users access to a feature but not those who only use phones/tablets is discriminating against us when we are PAYING (or not paying if that be the case) the SAME yet not receiving the same BASIC functionality.

[AgentOrange]

@onlyone311  I agree with this as well. There should be the ability to see ALL creation, modification, AND upload dates for ALL types of files, as well as any folders, etc. It’s a basic feature in file explorer applications, device photo/video/audio galleries/etc. These applications exist on mobile devices as well as computers and those dates are preserved within those apps if it’s a decent one. I’m completely confused and frustrated since discovering that this is not the case for an app like Dropbox, considering it’s supposed to be a top of the line cloud backup app.

And especially for those of us who PAY for a premium subscription it isn’t right that computer owners get more for their money, ESPECIALLY very BASIC functionality such as preservation and ability to view/sort by/etc the ORIGINAL creation dates of our files/pics/video/FOLDERS.

im not saying that modified dates should be removed, quite the opposite. We need to be able to view & sort by ALL of these, without sacrificing one thing for another, denying us the ability to even VIEW file information for non-photo files, not including sort-by-creation-date functionality, and other such basic functions that have been a standard of folder/file functionality since even before the World Wide Web made the internet accessible to almost everyone in the world.

[Excalibur59]

I totally agree! I assumed that synchronising files from dropbox cloud to any device would keep creation date, I've changed my phone and I can't tranfer photo retaining creation date to organize them. I hope this will be implemented asap 🙂

[godzillar]

 this is very well infomation pleased today going good like it alot . leon.

[Fulstofanet1]

Ja det kunne være godt, så kommer billeder på rigtig plads efter oprindelse dato 

[iar]

Hiya, Dropbox iOS engineer here!

Thank you for the detailed feedback! The three issues described (and please let me know if I've missed any) including loss of creation date, inability to view full file metadata on mobile, and inability to sort by creation date are all important. They are also the purviews of three distinct teams (one of which is mine).

I've reached out to my team's PM and designer, as well as members of the other respective teams, to discuss what we can do.

@AgentOrange can you please provide more detail around the loss of creation date metadata? I'd like to know more about the types of files that seem to be losing that data, the means by which they're uploaded, and whether the metadata appears missing or incorrect across different platforms. E.g., if you have a .jpg image that was uploaded via Camera Uploads on your iPhone, does the creation date seem incorrect if you view that image when downloaded to your desktop?

[LFM]

I agree preserving Metadata is very important.  It would also be great to preserve that when downloading files.