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Forum Discussion
In dropbox.com/Camera Uploads, file names with colons are not synched to Windows
At Dropbox.com in my Camera Uploads folder I have over 900 jpg files which contain a colon (i.e. : ) in their file names. For example 20161202-15:51 - 15.51.19.jpg
It seems these files will not sy...
Rich
Super User II
Super User II
XLRotor wrote:
Dropbox evidently names and/or renames them when uploading.
Dropbox does rename photos and videos when using the Camera Uploads process, but it doesn't use colons. The format used by Camera Uploads is YYYY-MM-DD hh.mm.ss.jpg. If your files have colons in the name, something else is causing it.
Files uploaded after about August 2022 don't have colons. Before that, they have colons. FWIW - None of my file names have the seconds in the name, and seconds are not available in any of the options in the Organize/Set naming convention dialog. One evidently cannot enter a custom name format - only the items in the list can be selected.
I reckon sometime in 2022 one of the coders at Dropbox realized that colons were a bad idea. As of today one can't get a colon even if you wanted to.
- Jay
Dropbox Community Moderator
Colons would never be used via camera uploads, as it is well-known that Windows cannot handle : and | symbols, along with others for many years.
The files would always be renamed in the same format using dashes and dots.
Is there a way to edit a post just after it's posted?
I should have added that colons in old files do appear in Dropbox.com (see below screenshot). Those old files are no longer on my phone, and they are not in my Dropbox folder on my Windows laptop. I thought they were gone for good until I found them at Dropbox.com and realized the colons were keeping them from syncing to my Windows laptop. The moment I rename a file to remove the colon, it appears on my laptop. I hope this thread spares some people from the same misery.
