Need to see if your shared folder is taking up space on your dropbox đŸ‘šâ€đŸ’»? Find out how to check here.

Forum Discussion

John64's avatar
John64
Helpful | Level 5
8 years ago
Solved

Preserving time-date stamps

When I download a file from my dropbox account, it gets a new time-date stamp. When I download a folder and extract the zipped folder, all the files get new time-date stamps. It's important for me to...
Download
Share
Web
  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    8 years ago
    Hi John, when you’re downloading the files from the website, indeed with any site, the ‘date modified’ or ‘date created’ will be for that moment, since the file didn’t exist before that period.
     
    If you’re using the Dropbox desktop application, then when the files sync down to your machine the dates and times will remain as they were, though the date modified would be the last time someone has edited the files.
     
    Hope this helps to clarify matters!
Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
7 years ago
If you’re dragging a folder onto the Dropbox site, then technically you are creating those files online for the first time, hence the modification date would be now.
 
If instead you moved the folder into the Dropbox folder, assuming you have the Dropbox desktop application installed, you’ll keep the original dates, like I mentioned above.
jaresing's avatar
jaresing
Helpful | Level 6
7 years ago

I'm not allowed to use the dropbox application on my computer because the synchronization is unattended. I have another sync program that allows me to do the synchronization on demand. Unfortunately it has the same time stamp issue. Which means I either need a new third party sync program or need to go to a cloud storage site that my current sync app will work correctly with. I tested Google. It works. I probably should test one drive and amazon . I just need to figure out which of the big three I will regretfully go to.

About View, download, and export

Node avatar for View, download, and export
Need support with viewing, downloading, and exporting files and folders from your Dropbox account? Find help from the Dropbox Community.

The Dropbox Community team is active from Monday to Friday. We try to respond to you as soon as we can, usually within 2 hours.

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X, Facebook or Instagram.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!