Loss of reliable “Date Modified” behavior is destroying file discovery and productivity

I’m running into the exact same problem, and it’s honestly shocking that this is even up for debate.

The whole point of “Date modified” is to reflect when a file was actually edited, so you can quickly find the current version across many folders. Once Dropbox’s own background activity starts arbitrarily rewriting that field, it doesn’t matter whether it happens on desktop or web—the timeline is corrupted everywhere.

It means:

• “Date modified” can no longer be trusted as a source of truth
• Extra time is wasted opening multiple files just to see which one is current
• Deadlines and version control become riskier for zero user benefit

If Dropbox wants to run indexing, AI, or any other processing in the background, that’s fine—but it should have its own clearly labeled timestamp. Silently hijacking core file metadata that operating systems and professionals have relied on for decades sends a pretty simple message: if you need reliable file timelines, you might need to start planning around Dropbox, not with it.

I don’t know why they refuse to take care of this, especially when people have been reporting it for years; at this point it almost feels like any of the usual reasons: it doesn’t show up in the right dashboard, it’s risky to admit the design is fundamentally flawed, or it simply doesn’t rank next to shinier roadmap items like AI and “engagement” features.

Whatever the internal justification is, the external message is pretty clear: breaking a core piece of file metadata that professionals rely on daily is apparently an acceptable trade‑off.

This isn’t an isolated complaint. There are years of posts about Dropbox showing wrong modified timestamps on uploads, migrations, and sync clients, plus entire workflows (Zettelkasten, backup tools, rsync‑style mirroring) getting wrecked because Dropbox doesn’t preserve or expose reliable modified dates.​

At some point it stops looking like an edge case and starts looking like a conscious decision: new “experiences” matter more than making sure basic file metadata remains trustworthy for people who actually organize their work by time.