Dropbox doesn't preserve the metadata of photos uploaded.

After logging into Dropbox, I enabled the "camera upload" feature and downloaded all my photos from my MacBook—about 30,000 of them. It was utter chaos. Most were in their proper places on the photo card (gallery), but several thousand weren't. Manual adjustments (e.g., the date taken in 3,000-4,000 photos was absurd) and all other attempts were futile. Finally, I deleted all the photos. I tried exporting photos to a separate folder, I tried transferring them via MultCloud from OneDrive (everything is in its proper place on that cloud). The result was similar: the same, or even greater chaos. I went back to the "zero" option and deleted many files, a huge number of photos. About 17,700 remained. Additionally, I decided to only upload photos that were new, at most, two years old. Only digital ones—mainly iPhone 15 Pro Max and iPhone 17 Pro Max, Nikon. Using the "+ add files" option, then "select," and in batches of 200-300. Again, a mess. This time, however, I examined the photos even more closely, with less than encouraging results. Dropbox doesn't like photos sent by someone else—even a friend who took a photo of me at the same time. It loses most of the metadata—but not always! Sometimes it leaves the data for a specific photo out of a series of, say, 7-12 photos. It's unclear why or how it selects such a photo. Dropbox doesn't like edited photos—it adds the edit date as the correct date and duplicates the photo as well. Dropbox doesn't distinguish between digitized photos at all. Here, it completely ignores the date of digitization, editing, etc., and places the photo at the top, assuming the date added to Dropbox. Furthermore, to say that Dropbox is very bad at distinguishing "photos from all pictures" is an understatement. Well, every cloud has its own philosophy. The one in Dropbox doesn't make life easier. The Dropbox gallery can't become my family gallery at all (God forbid, a professional one!) Sensible organization is impossible, and therefore, any search is impossible. If it is, it requires a huge amount of manual work. Dropbox stores photos like a giant garbage bag. Search, and you might find what you're looking for. Interestingly, I've used or still use cloud storage like Flickr, Box, Google Drive, Adobe Cloud (now Lightroom), One Drive, and iCloud (Apple)—on all of these drives, my photos were organized. There were only a few instances where I needed to make adjustments, and they still are. I don't have problems anywhere else—that's why, among other things, I tried transferring from iCloud or One Drive, also through Multicloud. What's most surprising is that the Dropbox manual's page on photo organization is probably the best on the web—very informative and thoroughly knowledgeable—and yet Dropbox itself can't do what it says in its manual. Long explanation, but here it is—with this grim observation, my problem is solved.

Best Regards, Paweł